THE  GIRL 

THAT 

GOESWRONG 


REGINALD 
••WRIGHT- 
KAUFFMAN 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 


'.  Of  CALIF.  LIBRA**.  LOS  ANGELES 


THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES 
WRONG 


By 

REGINALD  WRIGHT  KAUFFMAN 

Author  of  "The  House  of  Bondage,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 
THE  MACAULAY  COMPANY 

1913 


COPYRIGHT,  1911,  BY 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


All  Rights  Reserved 

Published  November,  ign 

Second  Printing,  November,  1911 


352  / 


to 

SOLOMON  SOLIS  COHEN 

PHYSICIAN  AND   FRIEND 

BUT  FOR   WHOM   MY  WRITING-DAYS 

HAD  ENDED  BEFORE  THIS   BOOK  WAS   UNDERTAKEN 

X.  W.  K. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  INTRODUCTION  ...„.,.        i 

II.  THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  BAD 13 

IIL  THE  GIRL  THAT  WANTED  ERMINE  ....      25 

IV.  THE  GIRL  THAT  STUDIED  ART          ....      38 

V.   THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL        ...      48 

VI.  THE  GIRL  THAT  WASN'T  TOLD        ....      62 

VII.  THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  ROMANTIC     ....      73 

VIII.  THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  WEAK 85 

IX.  THE  GIRL  THAT  WENT  TO  SEE       .        .        .        .98 

X.  THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  POOR 100 

XI.   THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE 122 

XII.  THE  WOMAN  THAT  Is  BOHEMIAN  .        .        .        .138 

XIII.  THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED 151 

XIV.  THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED       .        .        .        .166 
XV.   THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  HUNGRY       .        .        .        .183 

XVL   A  CASE  OF  RETROGRESSION 194 

XVII.   "THOSE   THINGS    WHICH    WE    OUGHT   TO   HAVE 

DONE" 207 


MARIA  PERIPATETIC  A 

Sad  painted  flower,  cast  unwist 

Into  Life's  lap;  poor  face  that  Fate 

Has  mocked  at,  drunk  to,  smitten,  kissed. 
Until  I  read  the  rune  thereof 

With  more  in  it  to  love  than  hate, 
With  more  to  pity  than  to  love: — 

What  nights  were  thine;  what  morns  were  theirs 
Whose  sleep  was  incense,  vital,  rare, 

Burned  into  ashes  unawares 
Before  thy  desecrated  shrine; — 

Thy  barren  bosom  freed  their  care, 
Because  its  milk  was  bitter  wine. 

Of  all  that  loved  and  let  thee  go 

Is  there  not  one  whose  lips  impressed 

Their  stamp  upon  thy  memory  so — 
Or  dark  or  fair,  or  black  or  white — 

His  eyes  outsparkle  all  the  rest, 

The  casual  Antonies  of  the  night? 

Off  all  the  mouths  thy  mouth  hath  drained. 
Off  all  the  breasts  thy  breasts  have  sought 

'And  clung  to,  mad,  desired,  disdained — 
In  that  long  catalogue  of  dole 

Is  there  not  one  who  something  taught, 
His  soul  embracing  thy  lost  soul? 


MARIA  PERIPATETICA 

That  fair  first  lover  on  whose  head 

Thy  maiden  shame  and  passion  place — 

Living  and  loving,  or  purged  and  dead — 
So  rich  a  crown  of  memory 

That  to  thine  inmost  heart  his  face 
A  sinning  saint's  seems — is  it  he? 


Or  is  it  some  poor  drunken  fool, 

Wiser  than  thou — God  save  the  mark/—' 
In  that  salacious,  brutal  school 

Where  beasts,  as  thou  and  I  are,  sweat 
Over  the  lessons  in  the  Dark, 

That  thou  recall'st  with  dear  regret? 

Perhaps  some  country  lad,  who  came 
Fresh  from  his  home  to  town  and  theef 

Is  closest,  his  the  charmed  name, 

Who  with  the  parting  tears  fresh  shed, 

With  all  his  sweet  virginity 
Thy  sacramental  table  spread. 

My  canker-eaten  rose,  what  then? 

My  scape-goat  of  an  outworn  creed, 
"  All  things''  said  Paul,  "  unto  all  men  "— 

So  thou  who  with  the  setting  sun 
Forest  nightly  on  the  endless  road, 

To  all  men  mistress,  wife  to  none/ 

But  mine  to-night,  though  not  to  kiss/ 
I  lay  my  head  upon  that  breast 

Whose  scar  our  sisters'  safety  is, 
And  from  our  darkest  misery 

To  beg  thy  mercy  is  my  guest, 
Lest  that  we  perish  utterly. 


MARIA  PERIPATETICA 

Forgive  our  women's  scornful  glance, 
Our  poor,  pale,  pure  maids  decorous, 

Virgins  by  purse  and  circumstance; 
Forgive  the  tearing  tusk  and  claw; 

Forgive  the  law  that  made  thee  thus; — 
Forgive  the  god  that  made  the  law. 

R.  W.  K. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 


INTRODUCTION 

THESE  are  not  the  sort  of  stories  that  I  used 
to  try  to  write.  They  are  not  fiction  at  all. 
I  wish  they  were.  I  wish  with  all  my  heart 
that  these  things  which  I  have  seen  and  these  black 
biographies  which  I  have  verified  were  but  the  visions 
of  a  night  of  weeping,  whereafter  "  joy  cometh  in 
the  morning."  But  the  world — which  means  you  and 
me — has  not  so  decided.  That  which  I  testify  is 
not  "  the  whole  truth,"  because  we  have  not  yet  suffi- 
ciently progressed  to  bear  the  publication  of  truth 
entire;  the  worst  must  still  be  left  to  your  imagination. 
And  yet  my  testimony  is,  I  assure  you,  "  the  truth 
and  nothing  but  the  truth." 

Why,  if  it  be  so  terrible,  should  I  ask  you  to  read 
it?  I  shall  try  to  make  that  clear  in  a  few  words. 

In  New  York  City  alone  there  are,  according  to 
the  last  authentic  figures  that  came  to  my  hand,  and 
not  counting  those  who  break  the  conventional  ethical 
code  in  secret,  30,000  prostitutes.  The  life  of  such 
women  in  such  a  trade — the  calculation  is  as  certain 
as  those  of  the  insurance  companies — averages  five 
years.  This  means  that,  for  New  York  alone,  there 
must  be  secured  6,000  new  public  women  every  year 
— and  every  year  that  number  is  secured.  From  the 


2        THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

most  conservative  accounts  obtainable,  it  is  safe  to 
say  that,  in  all  of  our  large  American  cities  and  most 
of  our  small  ones,  there  is  one  prostitute  to  every  one 
hundred  and  sixty  of  the  population — men,  women, 
and  children.  About  one-half  of  these  prostitutes 
come  from  the  rural  districts,  and  the  majority  are 
native-born. 

Now,  do  you  see  why  I  ask  you  to  consider  this 
problem?  You  may  believe  in  the  abolition  of  pros- 
titution or  in  its  supervision  by  the  state.  You  may 
believe  in  the  still  commonly  preached  standard  of 
sex-morality,  or  you  may  believe  in  the  standard  both 
commonly  reprobated  in  public  speech  and  commonly 
advocated  in  private  action.  However  you  regard 
these  matters,  concerning  the  forcing  of  girls  into 
prostitution  there  can  be  no  two  opinions  among  fair- 
minded  people.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  the 
force  be  applied  by  economic  circumstance,  by  brute 
strength,  or  by  trickery  and  seduction :  that  force 
should  be  employed  is  abominable. 

Do  you  consider  that  you  have  no  responsibility 
for  what  constantly  happens  to  girls  at  some  place 
distant  from  that  in  which  you  live  ?  You  have  a  re- 
sponsibility; but,  for  the  present,  we  shall  waive  that. 
Do  you  think  that  you  have  an  excuse  for  not  greatly 
caring  about  the  fate  of  immigrant  women  in  the 
United  States?  You  have  no  excuse;  but,  for  the 
present,  we  shall  waive  that  lack  of  excuse  also.  Let 
us  assume  the  selfish  attitude:  I  ask  you  to  consider 
this  problem  because  it  concerns  your  own  daughters 
and  sons,  your  own  sons-in-law  and  brothers-in-law, 
your  own  sister,  your  own  sweethearts,  your  own  body 
and  soul. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

When  Leslie's  Weekly  courageously  opened  its 
columns  to  the  serial  publication  of  the  stories  now 
gathered  into  this  volume,  I  said  that,  with  all  neces- 
sary changes  of  names,  dates,  and  places  carefully 
effected,  and  with  the  composite  frequently  presented 
as  the  individual,  what  I  have  told  is  a  part  of  what 
I  have  seen  with  my  own  eyes.  Nevertheless,  I  do  not 
ask  you  to  accept  my  unsupported  testimony.  It 
would  be  possible  to  summon  any  number  of  corrobo- 
rating witnesses;  yet,  if  you  doubt  that  the  conditions 
that  I  am  to  speak  of  extend  from  one  end  of  the 
country  to  the  other,  then : 

Write  to  the  New  York  Probation  Society  for  its 
first  report  and  read  the  statement  concerning  condi- 
tions in  New  York  made  by  District  Attorney  Charles 
S.  Whitman. 

Secure  a  copy  of  the  latest  report  of  the  Vice  Com- 
mission of  the  City  of  Chicago. 

Read  some  of  the  publications  of  the  American 
Society  of  Sanitary  and  Moral  Prophylaxis. 

Write  to  your  Congressman  for  a  copy  of  Senate 
Document  No.  196,  and  note  the  testimony  of  a 
corps  of  Government  experts  whose  investigations  ex- 
tended from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other. 

There  are  a  few  of  my  witnesses.  As,  however,  the 
stories  that  they  corroborate  are,  after  all,  the  results 
of  personal  investigations,  a  personal  explanation 
should,  perhaps,  precede  those  stories. 

My  own  interest  in  the  problem  of  prostitution 
began  a  good  many  years  ago  when  I  was  a  reporter 
on  a  Philadelphia  newspaper.  One  bitterly  cold 
night,  or  rather  morning,  I  had  bee^  detained  at  my 
office  until  two  o'clock.  As  I  stepped  into  the  street  I 


4        THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

was,  I  recall,  nearly  driven  against  the  side  of  the 
building  by  the  gale  that  was  blowing.  The  sleet 
cut  at  my  cheeks  and  the  pavement  was  like  the  sur- 
face of  a  frozen  pond.  I  noticed  that  the  thorough- 
fare was  almost  deserted  and  yet,  just  under  a  sput- 
tering electric  light,  I  was  accosted  by  a  lonely  woman. 

There  was  no  mistaking  her  trade,  and  there  was 
nothing  attractive  about  this  practitioner.  Her  ringed 
eyes  were  hard,  her  rouged  face  was  prematurely 
old,  and  her  red  mouth  was  cruel. 

I  asked  her  why  she  was  working  so  late  and  in 
such  weather. 

"  I'm  doin'  it,"  she  said — and  I  can  still  hear  her 
hollow  voice — "  because  I  need  some  more  money  on 
my  kid's  boardin'-school  bill.  The  bill's  got  to  be 
paid  to-morrow." 

That  woman  told  me  a  story  that  I  subsequently 
investigated  and  found  true.  She  had  been  inveigled 
from  a  country  town,  taken  to  the  city,  and  then,  by 
the  man  that  had  said  he  loved  her,  turned  upon  the 
street.  When  her  child  was  four  years  old,  she  had 
taken  the  little  girl  to  a  certain  educational  institu- 
tion— not  a  charitable  affair — and  the  officials  of  that 
institution,  with  whom  the  woman  was  perfectly 
frank,  had  agreed  to  take  the  child  and  educate  her 
on  three  conditions :  The  woman  must  consent  never 
to  see  her  daughter  again,  she  must  consent  to  having 
her  daughter  brought  up  in  the  belief  that  the  mother 
was  dead,  and  she  must  pay  the  bills  regularly. 

That  mother's  love  proved  itself  absolutely  unself- 
ish— the  woman  kept  her  bargain. 

This  was  the  incident  that  started  me  on  my  in- 
quiries. After  some  years  cf  work  in  other  cities,  I 


INTRODUCTION  5 

rented  rooms  in  an  East  Side  tenement  house,  on  the 
island  of  Manhattan,  on  the  outskirts  of  the  district 
in  which  lived  many  of  the  people  of  whom  I  was 
to  write  and  from  which  still  more  of  their  sort  are 
daily  recruited.  Here  my  wife  and  I  pursued  our 
researches  in  a  living  medium. 

I  studied  these  people  and  lived  among  them;  but 
not  as  a  patron,  nor  as  a  customer,  not  as  a  slaver  on 
the  one  hand,  or  a  benefactor  on  the  other;  not  as  a 
preacher  or  as  what  they  call  a  "  reform  spotter." 
I  went  among  them  on  the  terms  of  simple  human 
fellowship.  I  studied  them  in  puritan  Boston  and 
hypocritical  Philadelphia,  in  Chicago,  Minneapolis, 
Baltimore,  Washington,  and  Denver,  as  well  as  in 
New  York.  I  came  to  know  them  in  London  and 
in  Paris,  in  scores  of  our  larger  cities  and  smaller 
towns. 

Our  method  in  New  York  is  a  fair  example  of  my 
general  line  of  work.  There  we  established  a  nomi- 
nal residence,  in  which  to  see  our  former  friends, 
near  the  field  of  our  labors,  but  we  also  rented  rooms 
in  other  sections,  and  it  was  mostly  in  these  other 
rooms,  when  not  on  the  streets  or  in  the  dives,  that, 
among  our  new  friends,  we  passed  our  time. 

Many  persons  have  asked  us  whether  we  em- 
ployed any  disguise.  We  did  not.  I  had  embarked 
upon  this  work  with  a  capital  of  less  than  seventy-five 
dollars,  and,'  as  we  did  only  enough  magazine  writ- 
ing to  keep  us  alive,  we  found  that  the  clothes  with 
which  we  started  were  soon  disguises  sufficient  for  all 
practical  purposes.  Twice,  because  of  arrears  in 
rent,  we  were  served  with  notices  to  quit.  Several 
times,  after  a  night  in  the  darkest  corners  of  some 


6        THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

city,  we  returned  to  go  to  bed  with  no  guess  as  to  how 
we  were  to  buy  our  breakfast. 

I  recollect  one  tenement  in  which  we  occupied  a 
place  on  the  top  floor.  It  was  called  a  model  tene- 
ment, but  a  generous  hole  in  the  roof  provided  a 
constant  pool  of  water  for  our  floor,  with  results  that 
proved  nearly  fatal.  I  protested.  No  repairs  were 
made.  I  stopped  paying  rent.  The  agent  came  to 
the  house  and  sent  up  word  that  he  wanted  to  see 
me.  As  it  happened  that  I  had  been  hurt  in  a  little 
affair  the  night  before,  I  returned  a  message  to  the 
effect  that  if  he  wanted  to  see  me  he  could  climb  to 
the  seventh  story. 

The  agent  climbed  and  arrived  panting  and  furi- 
ous. He  was  a  thin,  sleek  man  in  a  comfortable 
fur  coat.  When  I  explained  my  trouble,  he  laughed. 

"  Why,"  he  said,  "  any  roof  is  likely  to  leak.  I 
have  a  leak  even  in  my  own  home  right  now." 

"  All  right,"  I  answered.  "  I'll  trade  you  resi- 
dences." 

He  did  not  accept  my  offer. 

Whenever  we  went  about  our  work,  we  found  that 
we  quite  soon  came  to  know  well  the  women  whom 
we  were  studying.  We  knew  them  as  friends.  In 
one  place,  when  we  had,  which  was  rarely,  more 
money  than  we  thought  we  ought  to  carry  about  with 
us  into  dives,  we  gave  it  for  safe-keeping  to  a  woman 
that  had  served  two  terms  as  a  pickpocket.  In  all 
the  cities  where  I  studied,  when  there  was  more  cash 
than  could  be  immediately  used — which  was  less 
often — I  could  always  lend  it  to  the  girh,  with  the 
absolute  certainty  of  repayment.  And.  TO  where  we 
would,  when  we  were  in  need  of  more  money  than 


INTRODUCTION  7 

we  had  on  hand — which  was  the  most  frequent  situa- 
tion of  all — we  could  borrow  small  amounts  from 
these  women.  From  positions  of  such  intimacy  I 
studied  the  problem  before  me  in  all  its  phases — in 
houses,  flats,  tenements,  and  in  the  darkened  streets 
and  doorways;  from  the  places  patronized  by  club- 
men to  those  patronized  by  sailors,  peddlers,  and 
thugs — and  although  we  found  that  conditions  were 
in  some  degree  worse  in  such  cities  as  New  York 
and  Philadelphia  than  in  certain  other  towns,  that 
difference,  when  it  existed,  was  always  one  of  degree 
and  never  one  of  kind. 

I  remember  well  the  first  real  prisoner — the  first 
real  white  slave — to  whom  I  talked.  She  was  a  girl 
from  Wilkes-Barre,  Pa.,  and  I  asked  her  whether 
the  life  was  as  bad  as  people  said  it  was.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  look  that  came  into  her  face  as  she 
answered: 

"  I  don't  know  what  they  say,  but  it's  worse  than 
they  can  say,  because  there's  a  lot  in  it  that  there  ain't 
no  words  for." 

In  every  city  I  found  that  most  of  the  girls  had 
been  forced  into  prostitution — in  what  manner  and 
by  what  means  I  shall  presently  indicate.  In  several 
I  found  the  old  brass-check  system  of  payment  still  in 
vogue.  But  in  all,  whether  they  are  paid  by  cash  or  by 
credit,  I  found  that — as  the  victims  have  to  pay  their 
masters  and  mistresses  for  clothes,  food,  and  lodging, 
and  as  the  rates  charged  for  these  things  are  beyond 
all  reason — the  girls  are  uniformly  kept  hopelessly 
in  their  owners'  debt. 

One  little  Chicago  slave  of  the  street — she  was 
scarcely  sixteen  years  old — pointed  out  to  me,  what 


8        THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

many  another  has  since  confirmed,  the  manner  in 
which  her  kind  are  robbed. 

"  Room  rents,"  as  she  put  it,  "  is  somethin'  awful, 
and  the  women  that  rents  the  rooms  know  we've  got 
to  pay  them  whatever  they've  a  mind  to  ask." 

"And  how  about  your  clothes?" 

"  Well,  we  need  showy  ones,  and  the  second-hand 
stores  where  we  get  them — society  ladies  sells  them 
there — spot  us  the  minute  we  come  in,  and  up  go  the 
prices  accordin'." 

"Where  do  you  eat?" 

"There's  a  slew  o'  restaurants  that  are  really  run 
just  for  the  girls  in  our  business.  Ours  is  hard  work 
and  it  needs  hearty  food,  but  those  restaurants  we've 
got  to  go  to  (they  won't  serve  us  in  lots  of  the 
others)  charge  us  Auditorium  prices.  Then  there's 
always  medicine;  there's  miles  to  walk  every  night; 
there's  bad  weather  and  hard  times  when  there  ain't  a 
cent  to  be  earned,  and  yet  all  the  while  there's  your 
fellow  waitin'  round  the  corner,  with  his  hand  itchin' 
to  take  all  you  got  and  his  fist  shut  to  crack  you  one 
on  the  jaw  if  you  don't  give  up." 

Why  don't  they  run  away — these  girls — from  their 
"  fellows  "  ?  I  used  to  wonder  about  that,  and  they 
all  gave  me  the  same  answer.  When  I  first  put  the 
question  it  was  to  a  Philadelphia  victim. 

She  looked  at  me  with  eyes  full  of  amazement. 

"  Who?  Me?  Where'd  I  run  to?  "  she  replied. 
"  If  I  ran  to  another  man,  it'd  be  the  same  thing  over 
again.  If  I  started  out  for  myself,  my  fellow'd  find 
me  an'  kill  me — or,  if  he  didn't  quite  finish  the  job, 
he'd  have  me  pinched.  An'  if  I  tried  to  get  some 
other  sort  of  work  before  I'm  too  broken  down  to 


INTRODUCTION  9 

do  any  other  sort — well,  I  never  learned  a  trade,  an', 
anyhow,  who'd  have  me  ?  " 

You  think  of  the  reform  schools — nearly  all  of 
them  semi-prisons — to  which,  in  most  of  our  States, 
we  send  thousands  of  these  offenders.  What  about 
them?  I  asked  that  question  of  nearly  all  the  pros- 
titutes that  I  met,  and  once  again  I  received  a  uni- 
form reply.  I  give  it  here  in  the  words  of  a  Boston 
street  girl. 

"Weren't  you  ever  at  a  reform  school?"  I  in- 
quired. 

"Yes,"  she  answered;  "an',  honest  to  God,  I 
learned  more  of  my  business  there  than  I  ever  learned 
on  the  street." 

From  the  women  that  I  knew  I  learned  in  what 
saloons  the  slave  traders  "  hung  out,"  and  I  hung 
out  there,  too.  At  first  I  was  avoided.  But  at  last, 
because  I  did  not  seem  anxious  to  discover  anything, 
I  discovered  all  that  I  wanted.  The  traders  at  last 
talked  before  me  freely,  and  I  have  heard  them,  in 
one  city  and  another,  discuss  their  wares  in  much  the 
same  tones  and  terms  as  those  in  which  horse-dealers 
talk  of  horseflesh. 

It  is  only  too  easy  to  learn  to  be  a  white-slave 
trader.  The  small  boy,  brought  up  with  no  advan- 
tages, is  necessary  to  his  family  as  a  wage-earner. 
He  is  taken  from  school  before  the  permitted  age 
and  put  to  work  in  a  factory  on  a  false  affidavit,  falls 
into  some  trifling  trouble  and  loses  his  job.  He  gets 
the  chance  to  act  as  a  "  lighthouse  "  or  scout  for  a 
mature  trader,  who  pays  him  well.  Then  he  gets  a 
girl  of  his  own  and  by  physical  punishment  forces 
her  to  go  upon  the  street  for  him.  Sometimes  he  be- 


io      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

comes  a  waiter  in  a  low  saloon,  and  offers  his  personal 
chattel  to  his  drunken  customers;  but  generally  he  is 
unfitted  by  this  time  for  any  steady  work.  Occa- 
sionally he  owns  three  or  four  slaves  and  "  farms 
them  out  "  to  business  acquaintances  in  other  neigh- 
borhoods or  other  cities,  and  often  he  sells  a  girl  into 
a  house,  either  for  a  lump  sum  or  for  royalties  on  her 
earnings. 

Wherever  there  is  hard  luck  looking  for  better 
times,  there  you  will  find  the  trader  looking  for 
slaves.  Wherever  there  is  poverty  longing  for  com- 
fort, discontent  sighing  for  relief,  hunger  gasping  for 
food,  there  stands  the  trader  with  his  easy  air  and 
specious  promises.  He  is  at  the  factory  door  when  it 
opens  to  release  the  pallid  workers  for  a  breath  of 
night-air.  He  is  at  the  cheap  lunch-counter,  where 
the  underpaid  stenographers  get  their  sandwiches 
from  underpaid  waitresses.  He  is  waiting  around 
the  corner  for  the  servant  and  the  shop-clerk.  Some- 
times he  offers  marriage,  always  he  offers  economic 
independence.  The  thing  is  done,  and,  once  done, 
blows  and  starvation  perpetuate  the  slavery  upon  the 
ignorant,  and  threats  of  arrest  and  the  certainty  of 
public  disgrace  weM  the  shackles  about  the  ankles 
of  the  more  knowing. 

There,  in  the  briefest  possible  terms,  is  the  situa- 
tion. The  thing  exists.  It  exists  in  your  own  city, 
your  own  town.  It  threatens  your  own  flesh  and 
blood.  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it? 

Suppression — efforts  to  close  the  houses  of  pros- 
titution— is  a  failure;  it  is  a  treatment  of  the  symp- 
toms, but  a  neglect  of  the  disease.  Individual 
reformation  that  deals  with  effects  and  forgets  causes 


INTRODUCTION  n 

has  never  yet  appreciably  diminished  the  ranks  of 
public  women.  There  remains,  then,  among  the  poli- 
cies more  prominently  suggested,  a  general  system  of 
sane  education  in  sex-hygiene. 

As  every  student  of  the  social  problem  well  re- 
members, the  bitterest  cry  of  the  girl  that  goes  wrong 
is,  "  Until  it  was  too  late,  I  didn't  know !  "  It  is  a 
fact  that  nearly  all  our  boys  are  left  to  discover  the 
fundamental  truths  of  life  from  the  worst  of  teachers 
— their  own  ill-trained  minds.  It  is  a  fact  that  nearly 
all  our  girls  are  kept  in  ignorance  of  the  full  realities 
until  they  learn  them  from  their  husbands,  or  until, 
as  is  increasingly  the  case,  they  learn  them,  to  their 
ruin,  from  a  man  whose  sole  purpose  is  seduction. 
Ignorance  is  not  innocence.  Genuine  innocence  im- 
plies a  complete,  clean  knowledge  of  the  truth,  and 
all  children  may  secure  that  knowledge  in  their  own 
schools  or  their  own  homes. 

"  Does  anyone,"  asks  the  president-emeritus  of 
Harvard,  "  protest  that  such  an  educational  process 
will  abolish  innocence  in  young  manhood  and  woman- 
hood? Let  him  consider  that  the  only  alternative 
for  education  in  sex-hygiene  is  the  prolongation  of 
the  present  awful  wrongs  and  woes  in  the  very  vitals 
of  civilization." 

Out  of  a  prurient  prudery  that,  only  a  few  years 
ago,  forbade  the  very  mention  of  prostitution  and 
its  accompanying  ills,  we  have  thus  advanced  to  a 
position  where  educators  declare  that  the  silence  of 
the  puritan  has  been  the  ally  of  the  vicious.  This 
means  much.  Such  a  system  of  education  as  Dr. 
Eliot  suggests  would  mean  more.  It  seems  to  me, 
however,  that  there  is  still  another  step  to  be  taken. 


iz      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

What  this  step  is  and  why  it  appears  to  me  to  be 
necessary,  I  shall  try  to  indicate  in  a  book  to  be 
published  in  the  near  future. 

REGINALD  WRIGHT  KAUFFMAN. 

"The  Gardens," 
East  Ayton,  West; 

Yorks,  England; 
aoth  August,  1911. 


II 

THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  BAD 

YOU  must  have  met  Gammage  before.  He  is 
the  sort  of  man  whose  existence  is  passed  be- 
tween an  effort  not  to  miss  the  eight-six  into 
town  and  an  effort  to  catch  the  five-eleven  home.  He 
is  one  of  those  pale,  nervous  men  who  live  in  the 
suburbs  and  have  no  sense  of  humor.  He  works  in 
a  place  that  he  vaguely  describes  as  "  the  office  "- 
nobody  knows  precisely  what  sort  of  an  office,  and 
nobody  precisely  cares.  He  works  hard  and  he  ac- 
complishes just  what  is  expected  of  him,  and  no  more. 
He  talks  a  little  about  what  he  used  to  do  when  he 
was  younger  and  had  a  better  job,  and  he  talks  a 
great  deal  about  his  country  club.  He  goes  to  church 
twice  on  every  Sunday,  and  on  Saturday  afternoons 
he  plays  golf.  Gammage  is  a  highly  respectable 
man. 

He  is  married,  of  course.  All  the  Gammages  are 
married.  And  my  Gammage's  Mrs.  Gammage  is 
what  her  husband  describes  as  "  a  mighty  fine 
woman."  She  is  little  and  timid  and  devoted,  and 
she  is  wholly  sure  that  her  "husband  is  the  best  pos- 
sible man  alive.  She  was  sure  of  it  when  they  mar- 
ried thirty  years  ago,  and  she  is  just  as  sure  of  it 
to-day. 

"  Of  course,"  she  once  confided  to  me,  "  I  don't 
know  much  about  Edward's  business  affairs — I  don't 
13 


14      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

think  a  wife  ought  to  interfere  in  such  matters,  do 
you? — but  I'm  sometimes  inclined  to  think  that  he 
isn't  wholly  appreciated  at  The  Office." 

"  Dear  me,"  said  I,  "  that's  impossible !  " 

"  Yes,  it  would  seem  so,  and  yet  he  is  not  ad- 
vanced so  rapidly  as  he  ought  to  be.  In  fact,  he  isn't 
advanced  at  all.  And  he  works  so  hard,  poor  dear  I  " 

The  poor  dear  felt  the  same  way  about  it,  and  I 
happen  to  know  that  he  had  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
in  keeping  his  family  up  to  that  standard  of  living 
required  of  members  of  his  golf  club.  That  is  one 
reason  why,  when  I  remembered  his  three  children, 
I  was  surprised  to  be  told  that  there  was  to  be  a 
fourth. 

"  Isn't  it  rather  expensive?  "  I  ventured. 

"  They  are  worth  their  weight  in  gold,"  said  Gam- 
mage. 

"Certainly,"  I  answered;  "but,  then,  you  can 
never  sell  them  at  par." 

Gammage  was  distressed  at  my  ill-timed  levity. 

"  It's  this  way,"  he  explained.  "  It  may  sound 
brutal,  but  it's  the  truth  that  if  you  have  several  chil- 
dren you  won't  feel  quite  so  terribly  if  you  should 
lose  one." 

I  don't,  here  and  now,  undertake  to  censure  that 
philosophy  of  parenthood.  There  are  a  good  many 
phases  to  the  question,  not  all  of  them  germane  to  the 
present  subject;  but  I  do  believe  that,  things  being  as 
they  are,  the  Gammages  were  not  well  enough  off  to 
bring  up  so  many  children  as  they  wanted  in  the  way 
in  which  they  wanted  to  bring  up  their  children,  and 
I  do  know  that  Gammage  felt  terribly  indeed  when 
he  lost  Sarah. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  BAD          15 

She  was  the  eldest  child,  and  I  have  rarely  seen 
a  prettier.  Even  as  a  dimpled  baby,  she  won  the 
hearts  of  all  of  us,  and  as  she  grew  older  she  com- 
pletely enslaved  her  father  and  mother.  She  had 
golden  hair  and  eyes  that  were  as  black  as  eyes  can 
be,  and  her  cheeks  were  pink  and  her  smile  the  smile 
of  a  young  lady  that  knows  her  power.  The  Gam- 
mages  declared  that  there  had  never  been  a  young- 
ster like  her,  and,  if  we  didn't  quite  agree  to  that,  we 
were  none  of  us  rude  enough  openly  to  dissent. 

I  remember  that  Sarah  was  the  merest  sort  of  a 
tot  when  she  learned  her  first  "  piece,"  and  I  sha'n't 
soon  forget  how  proudly  good  old  Edward  told  me 
about  it. 

"  You've  got  to  hear  her  say  it,"  he  declared,  "  if 
you  want  properly  to  appreciate  it.  It's  the  first 
three  verses  of  that  *  Excelsior  '  thing,  you  know,  and 
I  give  you  my  word  I  never  before  realized  how 
much  there  was  to  the  poem." 

He  used  to  try  to  give  us  an  imitation  of  her 
recitation. 

I  happened  in  at  his  house  one  evening  a  week 
later.  It  was  somewhere  about  ten  o'clock. 

"  If  you  had  only  been  an  hour  earlier,"  said  Mrs. 
Gammage,  "  we'd  have  had  Sarah  recite  her  piece  for 
you." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  keep  the  child 
up  until  nine !  "  I  ventured. 

"  Oh,  no,"  Mrs.  Gammage  explained.  "  It  isn't 
that  we  keep  her  up ;  it's  that  she  won't  go  to  bed." 

"  Wouldn't  you  like  to  hear  her?  "  asked  Edward. 

"  Of  course  I  should.  I'll  come  earlier  next 
time." 


1 6      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  But  I  can  get  her  now." 

"What?    Waken  her?" 

"  She  won't  mind.     She  likes  it." 

He  got  her — got  her  in  spite  of  my  remonstrances. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  she  minded  a  good  deal;  but 
she  was  bribed  with  candy  and  placed  upon  the  dining- 
room  table — we  were  having  a  late  salad,  I  remember 
— and  there,  after  she  had  dug  her  round  fists  into 
her  beautiful  eyes,  she  stood  up  and  triumphantly 
gave  her  recitation.  When  she  had  finished,  we  pre- 
tended we  were  at  a  play  and  that  she  was  the  star. 
Her  parents  applauded  vociferously;  Edward  threw 
her  a  faded  carnation  from  his  buttonhole,  and  Mrs. 
Gammage  kissed  her  and  rewarded  her  with  the  prom- 
ise that  next  night  she  could  stay  up  as  long  as  she 
pleased. 

Do  you  wonder  that  the  child  did  it  again?  She 
did — several  times.  They  got  to  be  rather  hurt  if 
callers  didn't  ask  for  Sarah's  "piece";  they  formed 
the  habit  of  serving  the  child  as  a  kind  of  extra 
course,  after  the  coffee,  when  there  were  guests  to 
dinner,  and  once,  when  Sarah  replied  to  an  encore 
by  kicking  over  Tommy  Campbell's  cup  and  soiling 
the  tablecloth,  her  father  and  mother  became  almost 
hysterical  over  her  budding  cleverness. 

It  was  that  same  summer  that  the  Gammages 
passed  their  two  weeks'  vacation  at  a  small  boarding- 
house  in  the  country — one  of  those  places  where  all 
the  "  guests "  spend  their  time  explaining  to  one 
another  that  they  "  have  come  here  only  for  the 
quiet,"  for  fear  they  will  otherwise  be  suspected 
of  coming  for  economic  reasons.  One  day  Sarah,  the 
landlady  being  ill,  was  found  to  have  inundated  the 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  BAD  17 

kitchen  garden  with  water,  in  an  endeavor  to  "  make 
the  flowers  grow  like  Mrs.  Bronson  does,"  and, 
though  the  flowers  were  ruined,  the  guests  all  thought 
this  remarkably  funny  and  said  so  in  Sarah's  hearing. 

The  inevitable  followed.  There  was  a  tank  on 
the  roof,  the  only  means  of  filling  the  single  bath- 
tub, and  there  was  a  spigot  to  tap  the  tank  when  there 
happened  to  be  an  oversupply  of  water.  Sarah,  on 
an  unoccupied  afternoon,  climbed  to  the  roof  and, 
turning  the  spigot,  watched  the  entire  supply  run  off 
by  way  of  the  drain  pipe. 

Nobody  thought  that  funny.  Everybody  com- 
plained to  Edward,  and  Edward,  who  had  come  in 
hot  from  golfing  on  a  poor  links  and  who  wanted  a 
bath,  lost  his  temper  and  gave  Sarah  her  first  spank- 
ing. 

"  You  are  a  bad  girl!  "  he  declared. 

"  Then  why,"  asked  Sarah,  "  did  you  all  laugh 
when  I  watered  the  garden?" 

Edward  was  at  a  loss  for  reply.  Besides,  there 
were  reasons  for  believing  that  his  domestic  expenses 
would  be  materially  increased  that  winter,  and  his 
employer  had  just  written,  in  reply  to  a  letter  from 
Edward,  that  he  could  not  grant  Gammage's  request 
for  an  advance  of  salary  at  the  conclusion  of  the  vaca- 
tion. Gammage  was  in  no  mind  for  casuistry. 

The  boarding-house  roof  was  not  the  only  goal  of 
Sarah's  climbing.  In  the  yard  of  her  suburban  home 
there  were  two  trees,  and  for  ascending  these  she  early 
developed  a  ready  ability.  When  the  Gammages 
returned  from  the  country  and  an  occasion  had  arisen 
to  make  her  father  threaten  fresh  punishment,  Sarah 
slipped  from  his  hands,  ran  into  the  yard,  and  had 


1 8       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

reached  a  perch  in  the  lower  branches  of  one  of  the 
trees  before  her  father  discovered  her.  Of  course 
he  could  reach  her  and  lift  her  down,  and  of  course 
he  did.  But  he  had  not  really  been  very  angry,  and 
the  child's  manner  of  escape  struck  him  as  so  remark- 
ably funny  that  he  laughed  and  forgave  her  for 
whatever  she  had  previously  done.  He  told  his 
friends,  and  she  heard  him. 

Upon  that  hint  Sarah  naturally  acted.  It  was  ob- 
vious that,  after  an  offense,  if  you  could  slip  away 
and  climb  a  tree,  you  would  be  performing  something 
amusing  enough  to  end  all  danger  of  punishment. 
It  worked  on  two  or  three  occasions.  Then  Sarah 
learned  to  climb  higher,  and  at  last  Gammage,  as- 
cending in  pursuit,  fell,  sprained  an  ankle,  and 
straightway  flogged  Sarah  just  as  hard  as  if  she  had 
not  climbed  at  all. 

The  entire  affair  impressed  the  child  as  inexpli- 
cable. She  could  make  out  no  logical  sequence  be- 
tween crime  and  punishment,  and  her  parents  never 
helped  her  to  a  solution  of  the  riddle. 

Two  facts  were,  however,  clear  in  Sarah's  young 
mind :  the  most  delightful  thing  in  life  was  to  attract 
applause,  and  the  one  sure  way  to  secure  applause  was 
to  be  a  little  different  from  one's  fellows,  to  go  a 
little  farther  than  one's  neighbors  went.  Upon  these 
facts  she  thenceforth  ordered  her  conduct.  She  would 
be  scolded,  she  would  be  whipped,  but  she  was  soon 
certain  to  hear  her  parents  laughing  about  the  offense 
to  their  acquaintances. 

"  We  must  tell  you  what  Sarah  did  yesterday," 
she  would  hear  them  say.  "  Naturally,  we  had  to 
punish  her,  but  it  was  really  too  funny  for  anything." 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  BAD          19 

They  sent  her  to  dancing-school,  where  she  at  once 
became  the  best  and  wildest  of  the  dancers.  They 
thought  that  funny,  too.  Gammage  had,  you  will 
remember,  no  sense  of  humor. 

"  I  suppose,"  he  smiled  at  her  upon  her  return 
from  her  second  lesson,  "  that  you'll  be  having  a 
little  sweetheart  now." 

"Why?"  asked  Sarah. 

"  Because,"  said  her  father,  who  liked  to  con- 
sider himself  epigrammatic,  "  most  of  the  girls 
wouldn't." 

Sarah  tossed  her  long  locks.  She  had  pretended 
to  scorn  boys,  but  now  she  began  to  think  differ- 
ently. From  the  third  lesson  she  returned  radiant. 

"  I've  got  it !  "  she  announced. 

"Got  what?"  inquired  her  parents. 

"  One  of  those  things  you  were  talking  about 
last  week — a  sweetheart." 

They  enjoyed  this.  Remembering  what  Gammage 
had  said  upon  the  subject,  they  thought  that  the 
child's  action  was  evidence  of  their  influence  upon 
her — which,  in  sober  truth,  it  was.  So  Sarah's  sweet- 
heart came  to  be  one  of  their  staples  of  conversation 
with  Sarah. 

When  the  first  of  her  brothers  had  appeared,  Sarah 
was  not  a  little  put  out.  Theretofore  she  had  focused 
attention  with  small  effort;  now  she  had  to  try  harder, 
and  as  the  number  of  junior  Gammages  increased,  the 
hard  lot  of  an  elder  child  was  made  for  this  child 
harder,  because  she  had  been  taught  first  to  expect 
and  then  to  demand  so  much. 

Nor  was  that  all.  In  the  smaller  Sarah  certain 
definite  characteristic0  h-»rl  been  implanted,  cultivated, 


20      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

admired;  and  now,  as  time  went  by,  these  same  char- 
acteristics appeared  to  be  regarded  as  anything  but 
admirable  in  the  larger  Sarah.  She  could  not  see 
why,  but  there  was  no  denying  the  condition.  There 
came  at  last  a  period  when  she  was  punished  nearly 
every  day  for  something  of  a  sort  that,  in  the  old 
days,  had  won  her  nothing  but  the  applause  she  so 
greatly  craved. 

Gammage  did  not  explain  it  to  her.  He  never 
even  supposed  that  an  explanation  was  necessary. 
Besides,  his  expenses  grew  and  his  income  remained 
as  stationary  as  Gibraltar — and  his  nerves  deterio- 
rated accordingly.  To  be  sure,  there  was  Mrs.  Gam- 
mage;  but,  then,  Mrs.  Gammage  was  all  day  busy 
with  the  other  children. 

"  You're  just  a  bad  girl,"  said  Gammage. 

"  Indeed  you  are,"  chorused  Mrs.  Gammage. 
"  And  I  don't  know  where  in  the  world  you  ever  got 
it  from,  I'm  sure." 

At  first  this  hurt  her.  Then  she  rebelled,  denied, 
fought.  But  in  the  end  repetition  did  what  repetition 
always  in  the  end  will  do:  Sarah  earned  her  ready- 
made  reputation. 

She  was  fifteen  then  and  at  school.  For  some 
time  she  had  half  the  boys  in  the  place  at  her  heels, 
for  her  beauty  had  grown  with  her  years  and  her 
parents  had  begun  by  admiring  her  talents  for  heart- 
breaking. Also,  Mrs.  Gammage  being  overoccupied 
at  home,  Sarah  had  a  good  deal  of  time  to  herself. 

Tommy  Campbell  was  the  first  person  to  speak 
to  me  about  it. 

"  Have  you  noticed  Gammage's  oldest  girl 
lately?  "  he  one  day  asked  me. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  BAD          21 

"  Sarah?  "  said  I.  "  Why,  no;  I  don't  know  that 
I  have.  What  about  her?  " 

"  Boys." 

"  Well,  she  always  was  pretty  and  it's  no  wonder 
that  she  should  be  popular." 

"  I  know;  but  there  are  boys  and  boys.  Besides, 
I  saw  her  coming  out  of  a  matinee  in  town  last 
Wednesday  with  a  fellow  I  didn't  like  the  looks  of, 
and  from  what  I  hear  from  my  own  youngsters  she's 
pretty  frequently  a  truant  from  school." 

"  She  does  like  admiration." 

"  She  does  that;  she's  been  taught  to.  They  used 
to  feed  it  to  her  with  her  milk  bottle.  The  result  was 
that  she  didn't  wear  well.  Most  of  the  young  boys 
out  home  have  got  tired  of  her  and  now  she's  look- 
ing elsewhere." 

He  heard  a  few  more  things  a  little  later,  and  at 
last  he  induced  his  wife  to  intimate  some  of  them  to 
Mrs.  Gammage. 

But  Mrs.  Gammage  only  shook  her  head. 

"  Not  our  Sarah,"  said  she. 

Then  the  matter  came  irresistibly  to  Edward's  at- 
tention. Leaving  his  office  at  an  unexpectedly  early 
hour,  he  almost  collided  with  his  daughter,  who  was 
supposed  to  be  at  school,  in  loud  and  merry  conversa- 
tion with  a  cigarette-smoking  youth  of  twenty  on  a 
city  street  corner. 

"  What's  this?  "  said  Gammage. 

"  It's  my  friend,  Mr.  Walker,"  said  Sarah,  flush- 
ing a  bit,  but  trying  to  see  tilings  through.  "  I  want 
you  to  meet  him,  father." 

Father  scarcely  glanced  at  the  youth ;  he  knew  the 
type. 


22       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"Why  aren't  you  at  school?"  he  demanded  of 
Sarah. 

"  Because — I — I  was  excused  to-day  and  I  thought 
I'd  come  in  town  and  surprise  you.  I  was  just  on  my 
way  to  your  office." 

"  Well,  you've  surprised  me,  all  right.  Now  come 
along  home.  I'm  going  to  give  you  a  spanking." 

He  took  her  with  him,  angry  and  humiliated.  He 
kept  his  word  about  the  spanking  and  he  locked  her 
in  her  own  room  for  twenty-four  hours. 

"  You  may  come  out  when  you  have  repented,"  he 
told  her. 

"  I  won't  repent,"  said  Sarah.  "  I'm  too  old  to  be 
whipped.  You  always  used  to  laugh  when  I  told 
you  the  boys  liked  me." 

"That  was  different;  you  were  younger  then." 

The  next  morning  Gammage  came  to  her  door. 

"  Are  you  sorry?  "  he  demanded. 

"No,"  said  Sarah;  "and,  what's  more,  I'm  not 
going  to  be." 

"  I  believe  you  are  a  thoroughly  bad  girl,"  said 
Edward. 

Of  course,  at  last,  Sarah  decided  that  it  was  better 
to  say  that  she  repented;  but,  equally  of  course,  the 
whole  thing  had,  within  a  month,  to  be  gone  over 
again.  The  only  difference  was  that  this  time  Mr. 
Walker  had  been  replaced  by  Mr.  Foster.  Then, 
during  the  summer,  Mr.  Foster  resigned  in  favor  of 
a  Mr.  Dalton,  who  said  that  his  home  was  in  another 
city,  three  hundred  miles  away.  Next  January  Ed- 
ward was  forced  to  force  Dalton  into  a  wedding,  in 
order,  as  Gammage  put  it,  "  to  save  the  family  name." 

It  was  a  sad  little  weduing,  with  the  Gammages  in 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  BAD          23 

tears,  Sarah  looking  unduly  radiant,  and  Dalton  look- 
ing as  if  he  wished  it  were  a  funeral.  They  left  that 
night  for  the  young  husband's  own  city,  and  for  2 
while  things  were  quieter.  Sarah  wrote  that  she  was 
very  happy,  that  Dalton  had  a  good  business  position 
— she  never  knew  for  certain  what  that  position  was — 
and  that  she  was  really  sorry  to  have  been  always 
such  a  bad  girl. 

And  after  that  she  did  not  write  again. 
It  was  perfectly  simple ;  it  happens  every  day,  only 
Gammage  would  not  have  known  of  it  if  Tommy 
Campbell  had  not  happened  to  run  across  Sarah  in 
the  city  to  which  her  husband  had  taken  her.  It 
wasn't  Dalton's  own  city  at  all,  and  as  soon  as  Sarah 
had  ceased  to  be  interesting,  Dalton  deserted  her. 
She  put  the  baby  in  a  foundling  asylum.  She  couldn't 
go  to  work,  because  she  did  not  know  how  to  work, 
and  she  couldn't  go  home,  because  she  knew  that  she 
would  be  regarded  as  a  bad  girl.  She  was  a  bad 
girl,  she  concluded,  and  so  she  actually  became  what 
is  generally  so  described.  Tommy  trapped  her  into 
betraying  her  real  address,  and  then  he  telegraphed 
to  Edward. 

Gammage  forgave  her  and  brought  her  home, 
where  she  lives  now  with  her  little  girl.  She  has  man- 
aged to  learn  dressmaking  and  to  make  a  living  by  it, 
but  that  trade  Edward  regards  as  rather  a  disgrace 
to  the  family.  She  actually  makes  clothes  for  the 
wives  of  some  of  his  friends  in  the  golf  club,  near 
which  she  has  rented  a  small  cottage;  and  Gammage 
still  talks  about  it  in  his  weaker  moments,  to  his 
friends. 

"  I  can't  understand  it,"  he  says.     "  It  is  too  ter- 


24      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

rible — altogether  too  terrible !  We  gave  her  so  much 
love — and  then  to  think  that  she  should  go  wrong! 
Why,  you  must  have  known  how  we  used  to  admire 
her.  Everybody  noticed  it.  We  didn't  deny  her  any- 
thing— not  a  thing.  Of  course  she's  all  right  now, 
but  her  life  is  a  ruin — a  ruin — and  it  has  made  her 
hopelessly  hardhearted  even  to  her  mother  and  me. 
We  have  offered  again  and  again  to  take  her  little 
girl  into  our  own  home  and  bring  her  up  precisely 
as  we  brought  up  Sarah,  and — would  you  believe  it? 
— Sarah  absolutely  refuses  to  let  us  have  anything  to 
do  with  the  training  of  her  daughter?  " 


Ill 

THE  GIRL  THAT  WANTED  ERMINE 

THE  New  York  man  that  built  the  apartment 
house  never  told  why  he  called  it  "  The  Chau- 
cer." Certainly  he  had  not  chosen  the  name 
because  of  any  personal  admiration  for  "  the  morn- 
ing star  of  English  song."  He  lived  on  Riverside 
Drive,  owned  a  string  of  bucket-shops  across  the  con- 
tinent, and  found  that  the  racing  pages  of  the  daily 
paper  satisfied  his  deepest  cravings  for  imaginative 
literature.  He  had  never  read  a  line  of  u  The  Parle- 
ment  of  Briddes,"  would  not  have  understood  it  had 
it  been  read  to  him,  and,  if  he  had  ever  heard  of  the 
Canterbury  Pilgrims,  probably  confused  that  little 
band  with  a  musical-comedy  company.  Neverthe- 
less, an  apartment  house  has  one  human  attribute — 
to  be  respectable,  it  must  have  a  name;  and  so,  the 
thing  having  been  built  and  the  hundreds  of  other 
apartment  houses  in  New  York  having  pre-empted  all 
the  titled  names  of  Europe,  the  owner  of  this  house 
was  doubtless  forced  to  "  drop  into  poetry." 

Certainly  there  was  nothing  poetic  about  "  The 
Chaucer."  A  young  newspaper  reporter  who  lived 
there  used  to  remark  that  if  architecture  was  indeed 
frozen  music,  then  "  The  Chaucer  "  was  cold-storage 
ragtime.  It  stood,  far  uptown,  in  the  middle  of  a 
block  of  other  apartment  houses  so  precisely  like  it 
that,  had  it  not  been  properly  labeled,  its  oldest  tenant 
25 


26      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

could  not  have  told  whether  he  lived  at  home  or  next 
door.  It  resembled  both  the  other  side  of  the  street 
and  the  block  beyond,  and,  when  he  looked  at  its 
cluttered  front  of  red  brick,  with  white  stone  facings 
that  glared  through  the  bars  of  interlacing  fire-escapes, 
the  newspaper  reporter  described  it  as  a  handsome 
pile,  delicately  combining  the  early  day-coach  school 
with  the  late  Pullman  period.  Though  it  presented 
to  the  street  a  painted  face,  its  rear  wall  was  slat- 
ternly; though  its  woodwork  gleamed  in  the  lamp- 
light, the  noon  sun  showed  the  cheap  veneer.  To 
quote  our  newspaper  reporter  for  the  last  time,  its 
name  should  have  been  The  Porthos. 

Even  from  the  inanimate  to  the  animate,  like  calls 
to  like;  make-believe  people  seek  make-believe  houses. 
The  inhabitants  of  "  The  Chaucer  "  partook  of  their 
surroundings.  They  were  bank-clerks  newly  married, 
lads  in  brokers'  offices  who  wanted  the  sham  of 
"  bachelor  apartments,"  maiden  ladies  that  boasted 
cousins  in  the  society  columns,  and  small  businessmen 
with  ambitious  wives.  Everybody  in  "  The  Chaucer  " 
was  more  than  respectable,  for  everybody  was  "  cor- 
rect " ;  everybody  pretended  to  more  means  than  he 
had  and  floundered  in  debt  to  do  it.  The  presiding 
demon  of  the  house  was  The  Proper  Thing. 

It  was  The  Proper  Thing  that  ruined  the  Dow- 
lings. 

"  I  will  not  do  it !  "  said  Mrs.  Bowling,  on  the  one 
occasion  when  her  husband  had  suggested  that  they 
go  to  the  gallery  of  a  theater. 

"  But,  Ella,"  he  had  weakly  protested,  "  we  sim- 
ply can't  afford  to  pay  the  speculators'  prices  for 
downstairs  seats." 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WANTED  ERMINE      27 

"  Then,"  said  Mrs.  Bowling,  "  we  can  better  af- 
ford to  stay  at  home.  I  won't  sit  in  the  gallery;  it  is 
not  the  proper  thing." 

They  paid  the  higher  price  and  sat  downstairs. 

All  that,  however,  was  some  years  ago,  and  Dow- 
ling,  who  had  been  a  clerk  in  a  lawyer's  office,  was, 
like  the  Pennsylvania  German  in  the  story,  "  dead 
again."  His  last  illness  had  been  a  long  one.  The 
entire  house  knew  that  it  was  severe,  and  not  to  have 
had  the  highest-priced  physicians  and  both  a  night 
and  day  nurse  would  have  been  to  confess  the  truth 
of  the  family's  finances;  so  Dowling  died  as  he  had 
lived — beyond  his  means.  But  he  had,  by  some 
economic  miracle,  been  able  to  stagger  along  with  his 
insurance  premiums,  and  he  left  his  wife  a  policy 
worth — in  spite  of  the  loans  made  upon  it — nearly 
fifteen  thousand  dollars. 

A  policy  worth  nearly  fifteen  thousand  dollars  and 
a  daughter  that  straightway  threatened  to  cost  three 
thousand  dollars  a  year! 

Letty  Dowling — "  Letty  "  had  been  her  father's 
name  for  her;  both  mother  and  daughter  always  used 
the  full  name  Letitia — Letty  was  not  altogether  to 
blame.  Mr.  Dowling  had  told  her  that  she  must 
go  to  the  best  finishing  school,  "  just  as  soon  as  things 
look  up  a  little  ";  and  from  the  day  when  Mrs.  Dow- 
ling had  clothed  the  infant  in  a  cambric  dress,  with  a 
silk  bib  and  several  yards  of  "  real  "  lace,  the  mother 
had  sedulously  cultivated  in  her  offspring  the  desire 
for  all  that  was  pretty,  expensive,  and  worthless. 

"  Why  not?  "  said  Mrs.  Dowling.  "  I  guess  that 
anything  that's  good  enough  for  a  Fifth  Avenue  girl 
isn't  any  too  good  for  my  daughter." 


28       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Thus  Letty  had  grown  to  fifteen  years.  She  had 
grown  in  a  home — if  home  it  may  be  called — where 
the  parents  deferred  to  her,  where  they  preserved  to 
her  and  even  to  each  other  the  mask  of  prosperity 
that,  from  long  usage  before  their  neighbors,  had  be- 
come a  habit  of  life;  where  the  child  was  the  focus 
of  an  admiration  that  would  have  regarded  as  almost 
sacrilegious  any  suggestion  of  social  supervision  for 
its  object.  She  was  as  pampered  as  an  old  maid's 
pug  dog  and  as  uncared  for  as  a  wolf-cub. 

In  order  not  to  spoil  herself  for  the  finishing 
school,  to  which  she  was  never  sent,  she  left  the  public 
school  the  year  before  her  father's  death.  In  order 
to  keep  herself  occupied  in  the  meantime,  she  walked 
up  and  down  Broadway  with  two  or  three  girls  that 
were  just  such  products  as  she  was  of  just  such  con- 
ditions as  were  hers.  She  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of 
matinees,  candy,  and  taxicabs;  knew  the  story  of 
every  romantic  play  and  the  marital  history  of  every 
popular  actress,  and  kept  on  her  bureau  the  photo- 
graphs of  a  half-dozen  actors,  which  she  had  sent  to 
the  originals  for  autographing.  Erect,  lithe,  golden- 
haired,  and  blue-eyed,  she  was  pretty;  overdressed 
and  overcoiffured  and  wearing  the  false  air  of  worldly 
wisdom  that  she  had  picked  up  along  Broadway,  she 
looked  three  years  older  than  she  really  happened 
to  be.  She  had  always  thought  that  her  parents  were 
well-to-do,  because  they  gave  her  all  she  asked.  There 
was  not  one  atom  of  positive  harm  in  the  girl  and  not 
one  atom  of  active  usefulness.  It  was  a  case  of  beau- 
tiful stagnation,  of  waste. 

When  Dowling  died,  his  widow  thought  of  invest- 
ing the  fifteen  thousand.  But  there  were  some  imme- 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WANTED  ERMINE      29 

cfiate  expenses  to  be  met,  and  when  these  were  cleared 
away  others  took  their  place.  Mrs.  Dowling  decided 
to  wait  until  she  and  her  daughter  were  once  more, 
as  she  expressed  it,  "  on  their  feet."  By  the  time 
they  had  assumed  that  erect  posture,  the  fifteen  thou- 
sand had  shrunk  to  ten  and — Mrs.  Dowling  was  still 
young — a  prosperous  real-estate  agent  was  attentive 
to  the  mother.  It  seemed  quite  unnecessary  to  deny 
herself  a  few  luxuries;  she  did  not  invest  the  money. 

After  that,  things  moved  rapidly.  Mother  and 
daughter  lived  at  the  rate  of  five  thousand  a  year. 
The  real-estate  agent  retreated,  but  a  commercial 
traveler '  appeared  to  be  on  the  point  of  proposal. 
Another  five  thousand  disappeared.  Then  the  com- 
mercial traveler  went  into  that  mysterious  country 
that  he  called  his  "  territory  "  and  never  returned, 
and  the  widow  began  definitely  to  seek  a  husband. 
As  Letty's  sixteenth  birthday  approached,  Mrs.  Dow- 
ling found  herself  confronting  a  bank  balance  of 
three  thousand  dollars,  with  no  prospect  of  increase. 

It  was  on  a  night  at  this  period  that  Letty  and  her 
newest  friend,  Jane  Hervy,  whose  family  lived  just 
across  the  street,  came  from  a  theater  and,  with  the 
rest  of  the  audience,  turned  into  brightly  lighted 
Broadway. 

"  I  don't  feel  like  going  right  home,"  said  Jane. 
"  I  don't  feel  like  it  a  bit." 

She,  too,  was  overdressed  and  overcoiffured;  but, 
unlike  Letty's,  her  face  was  pale  and  nervous. 

"I  don't  feel  like  it,  either,"  Letty  confessed; 
"  but  where  can  we  go  ?  " 

"  Let's  " — Jane's  eyes  sparkled — "  let's  slide  into 
a  cafe  and  have  some  Rhine  wine  and  a  rarebit." 


30      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

The  suggestion  was  golden  with  the  lure  of  novelty. 

"  I'd  love  to,"  faltered  Letty;  "  only " 

"Only  what?" 

"Only  I'm  broke,  dear." 

Jane's  face  was  all  surprise.  "No  money?" 
The  idea  was  new  to  her. 

Letty  nodded  woefully.  Not  so  long  ago  the  idea 
had  been  new  to  her,  too;  but  within  the  last  few 
weeks  her  mother  had  begun  to  be  surprisingly 
"  close,"  and  Letty,  ashamed  to  acknowledge  this  and 
unwilling  to  forego  her  pleasure,  had  that  afternoon 
pawned  her  seal-ring  for  the  price  of  the  theater 
ticket. 

"  Not  a  cent  left,"  said  Letty. 

"  I  think,"  retorted  her  companion,  with  mature 
feminine  divination,  "  that  your  mother's  real  mean." 

"She's  not!"  flashed  Letty. 

"  Well,  I  think  so,  anyhow.  Look  at  your  furs ! 
You  said  yourself  they  were  worn  out.  But  never 
mind;  this  will  be  my  treat." 

Letty  did  mind:  most  of  the  treats  had  lately  been 
Jane's.  However,  though  she  had  often  been  in 
Broadway  cafes  for  afternoon  tea,  she  had  never  been 
in  one  for  evening  Liebfraumilch.  With  a  sense  that 
something  wonderful  was  about  to  happen,  she  suc- 
cumbed. 

Nothing  did  happen.  Nothing  ever  does — at  first. 
What  she  ate  and  drank  was  pleasant  only  because 
it  was  unusual,  and  what  she  saw  only  annoyed  her 
because,  whereas  her  street  clothes  had  not  seemed 
amiss  at  the  same  table  on  many  an  afternoon,  she 
was  now  shamefully  conscious  of  their  inadequacy 
among  the  scores  of  brilliant  toilets  about  her.  She 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WANTED  ERMINE     31 

laughed  and  chatted  with  Jane,  but  her  eyes  were  on 
the  women,  and  she  wished  she  was  at  home. 

At  the  next  table  sat  two  men  and  a  woman.  The 
one  man's  face  was  hidden,  but  his  companion — who 
might  have  been  forty  years  old  and  was  large  and 
stout,  with  a  heavy  dark  mustache  and  a  red  face — 
looked  at  Letty  with  a  gaze  that  she  had  often  en- 
countered, but  never  understood.  She  did  not  under- 
stand it  now,  though  she  was  pleased  that  she  should 
have  attracted  the  attention  of  a  man  of  such  maturity 
in  the  company  of  a  woman  so  richly  clad.  She 
looked  at  the  woman,  whose  back  was  turned,  but 
whose  shoulders  were  covered  by  a  broad  boa  of 
ermine.  Letty  did  not  know  whether  to  be  flattered 
by  the  man's  glance  or  envious  of  the  woman's 
furs. 

When  the  girls  rose,  Letty  hooked  her  common- 
place mink  fur  about  her  throat,  and,  in  passing, 
surreptitiously  touched,  with  longing  fingers,  the 
ermine  boa.  She  thought  afterward  that  the  red- 
faced  man  must  have  observed  the  gesture.  At  any 
rate,  as  they  reached  the  door,  a  hurrying  waiter 
overtook  her  and  Jane  and  placed  in  Letty's  hand  a 
card.  Almost  instinctively  Letty's  fingers  closed 
about  the  piece  of  pasteboard. 

"  It's  just  one  of  my  cards  that  I  dropped,"  she 
explained  to  Jane. 

But,  once  she  was  alone  in  her  own  room  at  "  The 
Chaucer,"  she  looked  at  the  card,  found  that  it  must 
have  come  from  the  red-faced  man,  that  it  bore  a 
name  wholly  unfamiliar,  and  that  it  asked  an  appoint- 
ment with  "  the  prettiest  girl  in  the  room." 

Well — Letty    kept    the    appointment.      She    was 


32       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

pleased  by  the  tribute  to  her  looks,  but  angry  that  a 
stranger  should  have  approached  her;  she  was  afraid 
of  she  knew  not  what,  but  her  head  was  turned  by 
something  that  she  could  not  describe;  she  was  sure 
that  the  adventure  was  one  not  to  be  narrated,  but  she 
was  hungry  to  be  a  part  of  the  gorgeous  company 
that  she  had  seen  in  the  cafe — so  she  kept  the  appoint- 
ment. 

Again  nothing  happened.  There  was  simply  a 
decorous  luncheon — no  more.  And  a  few  evenings 
later  there  was  an  equally  decorous  supper. 

"  I  should  think  you'd  be  ashamed  of  me,"  said 
Letty,  on  this  occasion,  to  the  red-faced  man. 

"  Ashamed?  "     He  raised  his  thick  eyebrows. 

"  My  clothes;  they're  good  enough,"  she  explained, 
"  but  beside  all  the  clothes  in  this  place  they're  posi- 
tively shabby." 

He  dissented;  but  he  so  dissented  that  she  knew 
that,  in  his  heart,  he  agreed  with  her.  Very  soon  she 
found  herself  telling  him  of  her  troubles  and  con- 
fessing to  the  attraction,  not  so  long  since,  of  that 
ermine  boa.  He  rather  shocked  her  by  offering  to 
buy  her  such  an  ornament.  A  few  days  later  he  even 
showed  her  a  beautiful  fur  in  a  Fifth  Avenue  shop- 
window;  but  Letty  held  aloof,  and  the  red-faced 
man  did  not  press  her — he  merely  gave  her  to  under- 
stand that  the  boa  would  be  hers  for  the  asking.  He 
was  still  all  that  Letty  thought  he  should  be ;  but  she 
often  passed  the  shop  alone  and  lingered  by  the 
window. 

One  day,  at  noon — her  usual  rising  hour — Letty 
stalked,  kimono-clad,  into  the  dining-room  for  her 
breakfast. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WANTED  ERMINE      33 

"  I  think,"  said  Letty,  "  that  I  have  made  up  my 
mind  what  I  want  for  a  birthday  present." 

The  choice  of  a  birthday  present  for  herself  was 
one  of  Letty's  annual  annoyances.  A  dozen  things, 
each  more  expensive  than  the  last,  were  always  de- 
cided upon  and  then  discarded. 

Mrs.  Dowling,  from  behind  the  coffee  urn,  looked 
up  almost  apprehensively,  a  tremulous  smile  on  her 
weak,  round  face. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked. 

"  Well,"  said  Letty,  in  the  midst  of  an  unstifled 
yawn,  "  I  want  a  set  of  ermine — hat,  boa,  and  muff." 

The  mother  bit  her  lip. 

"  We  can't — I'm  afraid  I  can't  give  you  all  that," 
she  quavered. 

Instantly  Letty's  blue  eyes  flashed. 

"Why  not?  All  the  other  girls  have  them.  It's 
midwinter  and  my  mink  neckpiece  is  a  fright,  and  the 
muff  is  molting." 

"  I — I  just  don't  think  I  can  afford  it,  dear." 

"Not  afford  it?    Why  not?" 

"  There  are  so  many  expenses  and " 

"  And  I'm  one  of  them?  Mother!  "  Letty  had 
been  to  the  theater  the  night  before,  and  after  the 
theater  had  stopped,  with  the  red-faced  man — of 
whose  existence  her  mother  was,  of  course,  ignorant 
— at  a  cafe,  where  they  had  eaten  a  supper  that  had 
not  wholly  agreed  with  Letty.  Once  more  nothing 
had  happened,  but  Letty's  temper  was  none  of  the 
best.  "  Didn't  you  just  buy  yourself  a  new  hat?  "  she 
demanded.  "  And  weren't  you  just  talking  about  buy- 
ing a  silver  cigar-case  for  that  horrid  Mr.  Theis  " — 
Mr.  Thei-s  was  the  matrimonial  fish  for  whom  Mrs. 


34      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Dowling  was  then  angling — "  a  silver  cigar-case  for 
his  Christmas  present?" 

The  mother  bowed  her  head.  She  did  not  know 
how  to  explain. 

"  Exactly,"  said  the  daughter.  "  And  yet  now 
you  sit  up  there,  when  I'm  ever  so  much  worse  dressed 
than  the  other  girls,  when  I'm  freezing  to  death — 
freezing  to  death ! — and  you  won't  buy  me  a  set  of 
miserable  furs,  and  you  call  me  extravagant  and  you 
say  I'm  ruining  you !  " 

"  Letitia,"  wailed  Mrs.  Dowling,  "  I  never  said 
anything  of  the  sort!  " 

"  You  thought  it,  anyhow.  Yes,  you  did !  I  saw 
it  in  your  eyes.  I  don't  want  any  breakfast.  I  don't 
care  if  it  does  make  me  sick  to  go  without  it.  You 
needn't  coax.  I  can't  bear  to  be  spoken  to  so  meanly." 

She  whirled  out  of  the  room. 

Such  scenes  had,  of  late,  been  of  growing  fre- 
quency, for,  contrary  to  all  previous  customs,  Mrs. 
Dowling  had,  within  that  autumn,  thrice  refused  her 
daughter's  requests  either  for  money  or  its  equivalent. 
But  heretofore  the  end  of  the  squabble  had  been  dif- 
ferent. The  child  had  been  followed  to  her  own 
room,  petted,  cajoled,  wept  over,  and  finally  given 
what  she  had  wanted.  Now  Mrs.  Dowling  knew,  at 
last,  that  she  must  call  a  halt.  She  wept,  but  she  did 
not  follow. 

Letty,  in  her  bedroom — among  a  collection  of 
school  pillows  and  college  flags — flung  herself  down 
on  the  couch  by  the  window.  She,  too,  cried;  but  the 
mother's  tears  were  those  of  impotent  sorrow,  the 
daughter's  those  of  balked  desire.  At  first  Letty 
cried  softly,  for  she  thought  that  Mrs.  Dowling 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WANTED  ERMINE      35 

would  come  to  her  relief.  Then,  as  Mrs.  Bowling 
did  not  come,  the  girl  cried  louder,  as  a  summons. 
And  when  the  summons  was  unanswered,  Letty's 
grief  became  a  howl  of  genuine  self-pity. 

In  the  midst  of  it,  however,  she  came  to  a  sudden 
pause.  She  had  raised  her  face  to  the  window  open- 
ing on  a  miscalled  light  shaft,  and  there,  only  a  floor 
below,  in  the  wing  opposite,  she  saw  a  young  woman 
at  her  toilet. 

The  woman  was  not  very  pretty  and  not  personally 
attractive,  but  it  was  at  once  evident  that  she  was 
engaged  in  making  herself  so.  Letty  watched  her, 
fascinated. 

The  woman,  clad  in  lace  negligee,  sat  before  a 
mirror  and  had  at  hand  a  smaller  glass  that  she  fre- 
quently brought  into  use  to  examine  the  back  of  her 
head  and  neck.  Her  dressing-table  was  covered  with 
silver-backed  brushes  and  combs,  manicuring  imple- 
ments, and  numerous  bottles,  boxes,  and  jars.  She 
remained  there,  and  Letty  remained  watching,  for 
two  hours. 

The  woman  dipped  her  fingers  into  one  of  the 
boxes  and  rubbed  them  on  her  face;  then  she  went 
over  her  face  with  a  soft  rag.  By  the  light  of  a 
gas-jet  flaming  at  her  elbow,  she  peered  hard  into  the 
large  mirror,  while  for  forty-five  minutes  she  clipped, 
with  a  strangely  curved  pair  of  scissors,  at  her  eye- 
brows, finally  delicately  penciling  what  remained  of 
them.  On  a  thin  stick  she  deftly  rolled  back  one 
eyelid  after  the  other,  skillfully  plying  the  pencil  the 
while.  She  rouged  the  right  cheek  and  the  left, 
scrutinizing  each  in  the  hand-glass,  and  touching,  rub- 
bing, and  retouching  until  their  glow  was  equal  and 


3 6      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

properly  distributed.  She  rouged  her  lips;  she  ap- 
plied a  powder  puff.  She  fitted  upon  the  top  of  her 
head  a  great  mass  of  false  curls,  patted  it,  pulled  at  it, 
adjusted  it  and  readjusted.  And  she  placed  on  the 
curls,  with  such  a  gesture  as  that  wherewith  a  queen 
must  don  her  crown,  a  beautiful  ermine  toque. 

Letty  forgot  her  tears.  She  watched  the  woman 
until  the  toilet  was  completed,  and  then  she  went 
downstairs.  The  woman  was  just  stepping  into  a 
well-appointed  automobile. 

Letty  turned  to  the  negro  that  was  at  once  day- 
clerk,  telephone  operator,  and  hallboy  for  "  The 
Chaucer." 

"  Who's  that?  "  she  inquired. 

The  boy  showed  his  white  teeth  in  a  broad  grin. 

"  Miss  Millicent,"  he  answered. 

"Millicent  what?" 

"  I  think  her  las'  name's  Duval.  Somethin' 
French,  anyhow.  But  all  the  young  men  that  come 
to  see  her  jes  calls  her  *  Miss  Millicent.'  " 

"Is  that  her  auto?" 

"  I  dunno.     She  has  it  every  day." 

"Does  she  live  all  alone?" 

"  Yessem." 

Free !  The  woman  was  free  and  rich  and  happy. 
Letty  went  out  for  a  walk  and  lingered  long  before 
the  ermine  boa  in  the  Fifth  Avenue  shop  window. 

For  all  the  week  that  followed  she  said  nothing 
more  about  birthday  presents  to  her  mother,  and  her 
mother  was  too  well  pleased  by  this  silence  to  risk 
disturbing  it.  Letty  passed  her  time  spying  upon 
Miss  Millicent.  She  watched  the  woman's  toilet,  her 
comings  and  goings.  She  saw  the  gas  burning  deep 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WANTED  ERMINE     37 

into  the  night  in  Miss  Millicent's  apartments,  and  she 
saw  the  handsome  young  men  that  entered  there. 
She  heard  their  laughter  and  the  late  music  of  a 
piano. 

Then  there  came  a  night  when,  after  the  theater, 
the  red-faced  man  induced  Letty  to  drink  a  little 
champagne,  and  when  she  told  him  about  Miss  Milli- 
cent. 

At  one  o'clock  Mrs.  Bowling  received  a  telephone 
message  from  her  daughter,  who  said  that  she  would 
sleep  at  Jane's. 

The  next  afternoon  Letty  returned  home.  In  the 
hall  she  stopped  to  hide,  under  her  long  coat,  an 
ermine  boa.  Five  months  later  she  disappeared. 

Her  mother  never  saw  her  again. 

But  I  did. 


IV 

THE  GIRL  THAT  STUDIED  ART 

1DID  not  intend  to  tell  this  story.  It  was  not 
included  in  the  original  plan  of  the  present 
series,  because  I  wanted  the  present  series  to  be 
solely  typical  and  because  I  believed  that  the  case  in 
point  was  exceptional. 

Now,  however.  I  know  better. 

I  returned  to  Paris  a  few  weeks  ago,  after  an  ab- 
sence of  some  years.  On  our  second  evening  in  the  city, 
my  wife  and  I  were  sitting  in  front  of  the  Cafe  Pan- 
theon, just  where  the  Boul'  Miche'  meets  the  Luxem- 
bourg Gardens  and  just  where  the  greater  arteries 
of  the  Quartier  Latin  pump  back  and  forth  the  life 
blood  of  the  student  section. 

It  was  a  spring  evening — such  an  evening  of  spring 
as  one  finds  rarely  anywhere  save  in  Paris — and 
grave-faced  young  men  of  all  nationalities,  in  the 
absurd  costumes  of  no  nationality  at  all,  were  sitting 
about  us  and  strolling  by — young  men  with  women 
that  were  both  young  and  old,  slim  figures  uphol- 
stered to  an  impossible  rotundity,  plump  figures 
squeezed  to  an  agonizing  slimness,  pink  cheeks  pow- 
dered to  simulate  death,  and  cheeks  like  the  dead's 
painted  to  mimic  health. 

"  There,"  said  I,  "  is  an  American  girl.  I  know 
she  is  American,  because  she  looks  so  studiously 
French." 


THE  GIRL  THAT  STUDIED  ART     39 

"  And  there,"  said  my  wife,  "  is  another." 

They  fluttered  by  like  the  rest — like  all  the  moths 
that  circle  the  flame — some  with  one  man,  some  with 
two,  and  some  alone.  Many  stopped  and  looked 
over  the  seated  crowd,  waiting  invitations.  We 
caught  one's  crayoned  eye,  and  she  sat  down. 

"  Hello,  America !  "  said  she.  "  Do  buy  me  a 
beer!" 

Unusual?  So  we  thought — then.  But  on  the  next 
evening  we  met  more  American  girls  like  her.  And 
on  the  next. 

I  got  their  stories.  Rather,  I  got  their  story. 
We  verified  the  details — the  two  of  us.  And  then 
I  recalled  again  the  story  that  I  had  not  meant  to  in- 
clude in  this  series  and  decided  to  include  it,  because, 
after  all,  it  was  just  this  story  that  I  had  now  heard 
told  again !  It  is  typical — I  do  not  say  of  all  young 
girls  sent  abroad,  unfriended,  to  study  music  or  art, 
but  I  do  say  of  a  great  number. 

What  I  remembered  was  not  a  boulevard  in  Paris ; 
it  was  a  certain  street  in  Denver.  Perhaps  you  know 
the  street  I  mean.  It  is  a  street  of  one-story  houses 
with  two  rooms — the  back  room  that  is  a  bedroom, 
and  the  front  room  that  is  a  show  window.  There  are 
little  doors  opening  into  the  front  rooms;  on  each 
door  is  a  brass  plate  bearing  a  Christian  name  only. 
In  the  show-window,  which  is  always  open,  sits  the 
woman  that  uses  the  name  on  the  door-plate. 

Not  so  many  years  ago  I  was  walking  down  that 
street.  The  hour  was  early — for  this  portion  of  the 
city — and  the  street  had  few  pedestrians.  I  was  think- 
ing of  other  things  and  I  was  singing,  half  aloud,  a 
French  nursery  rhyme. 


40       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Au   clair   de   la   lune, 

Mon  ami  Pierrot, 
Prete-moi  ta  plume 

Pour  ecrire  un  mot. 

I  got  so  far  and  then  I  stopped.  Another  voice — 
it  must  once  have  been  a  woman's  voice — had  taken 
up  the  simple  melody: 

Ma  chandelle  est  morte, 
Je  n'ai  plus  de  feu. 

I  turned.  The  singer  was  seated  in  the  open  win- 
dow at  my  elbow. 

There  is  no  need  to  describe  her.  It  is  enough  to 
say — it  is  surely  enough — that  she  belonged  in  that 
frame. 

"  Where  did  you  learn  the  song?  "  I  asked. 

Her  lips,  stiff  with  paint,  tried  to  curve  into  the 
trade  smile. 

"  I  was  born  French,"  she  said. 

I  shook  my  head.  "  The  name  on  your  door  is  an 
English  one." 

She  shrugged. 

"  As  if  the  name  mattered,"  said  she. 

"At  all  events,"  I  insisted,  "the  accent  does. 
Yours  was  abominable." 

At  that  she  flashed.  Now,  one  is  not  tender  of  a 
natural  gift,  but  we  are  all  jealous  of  our  acquirements. 
I  pressed  my  point  and  she  confessed  that  I  had 
guessed  rightly.  In  the  end  she  told  me  all  that  there 
was  to  tell. 


"  I  always  wanted  to   be   an    artist,"   she   said. 
"  When  I  was  a  mere  bit  of  a  girl  I  wanted  it.     I 


THE  GIRL  THAT  STUDIED  ART     41 

tried  to  draw  pictures  long  before  I  could  write  the 
alphabet,  and  I  grew  up  to  believe  that  there  wasn't 
anything  else  much  worth  while. 

"  We  lived  in  Baltimore — my  father  and  mother 
and  my  two  brothers.  We  weren't  really  Southern- 
ers— my  parents  were  born  down  East — but  we  were 
poor;  and  later,  because  I  didn't  like  to  be  poor 
without  any  good  reason  for  it,  I  used  to  tell  peo- 
ple that  my  family  had  been  ruined  through  its 
loyalty  to  the  Confederacy.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
father  was  a  foreman  in  one  of  the  mills  and  my 
brothers  both  worked  on  the  railroad. 

"  Well,  as  I  say,  I  always  wanted  to  be  an  artist. 
I  know  now  that  I  hadn't  much  talent.  I  might  have 
managed  to  do  a  few  illustrations,  some  day,  for  the 
fashion-page  of  a  newspaper;  but  as  for  making  any- 
think  like  a  real  living  at  art,  that  would  never  have 
happened.  I  was  just  a  sort  of  possible  second-class 
so-so — which  is  what  most  girls  are  who  try  to 
break  into  the  game.  But  I  thought  I  was  a  genius. 
I  so  hard  wanted  to  be  a  genius  that  I  thought  I 
was. 

"  It's  no  joke  wanting  terribly  to  be  something 
that  it's  just  not  in  you  ever  to  become.  Deep  down 
in  your  heart,  where  you  never  know  it,  you  mistrust 
yourself,  and  that  makes  you  hate  everybody  else.  It 
makes  you  bitter. 

"  The  worst  of  it  was  that  my  own  family  encour- 
aged me.  They  were  so  kind  that  if  I'd  said  I  was 
an  angel,  they'd  have  seen  the  wings,  and  they  loved 
me  so  much  that  they'd  have  sold  the  carpets  to  buy 
me  an  aureole — especially  mother.  I  just  went  among 
them  living  on  their  praises,  and  by  and  by  I  never 


42       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

seemed  to  put  my  foot  on  the  ground — simply  lived 
in  the  clouds  from  sunrise  to  sunrise. 

"  Well,  of  course  I  couldn't  spare  the  time  to  learn 
to  cook  or  sew,  and  of  course  I  couldn't  waste  my 
inspiration  over  the  regular  studies  in  the  public 
school.  I  didn't  see  what  use  an  artist  would  have 
^or  a  needle  or  a  frying-pan  or  a  history  of  the  world. 
What  I  wanted  was  an  instructor  in  art  with  a  large 
A;  so  naturally  poor  father  drew  some  of  his  build- 
ing-association cash,  and  mother,  she  got  up  the  stock- 
ing from  the  mattress,  where  she  kept  what  she  could 
save  from  the  market  money,  and  they  sent  me  to  a 
man  that  said  he  knew  all  the  art  there  ever  was. 

"  He  didn't.  He  was  only  one  of  a  tremendous 
army  of  fakers  that  are  making  a  living  out  of  the 
brand  of  fool  that  I  happened  to  be.  Even  I  found 
that  out  at  last,  and  then  I  changed  him  for  another 
that  was  just  as  much  of  a  sell. 

"  Don't  get  it  into  your  head  that  I  was  bad  or 
even  fast.  I  was  only  a  simpleton,  like  lots  and  lots 
of  girls  that  go  abroad  to  study  art  every  year.  I 
read  no  end  of  books  about  artist  life,  but  they  were 
the  sort  of  books  that  cover  things  over  and  turn  your 
head  instead  of  showing  things  up  and  keeping  you 
sane.  I  knew  about  as  much  about  the  real  facts  of 
life  as  I  knew  about  the  real  facts  of  art. 

"  Those  books  helped  a  lot.  They  were  all  Paris 
— a  Paris  that  never  was  and  never  could  be.  You 
know  what  I  mean — studios  and  music  and  dancing, 
chafing-dish  suppers  to-night  and  the  Prix  de  Rome 
to-morrow.  You  have  a  good  time  and  the  govern- 
ment buys  your  masterpiece  for  the  Luxembourg, 
and  you  marry  the  poor  painter  that  loved  you  and 


THE  GIRL  THAT  STUDIED  ART     43 

that  turns  out  to  be  a  Los  Angeles  millionaire  in 
disguise. 

"  After  about  a  year  of  that  I  decided  it  was 
Paris  or  nothing.  I'd  never  wanted  to  begin  draw- 
ing anywhere  short  of  the  life  class,  and  now 

Well,  no  Peabody  Institute  for  me. 

"  So  I  went  to  Paris.  Yes,  I  did.  I  figured  it 
all  out — from  the  books,  of  course — and  I  proved  to 
the  satisfaction  of  the  family  that  I  could  live  in 
the  Latin  Quarter  on  thirty-five  francs — on  seven 
dollars — a  week,  and  live  well. 

"  'Are  you  sure  about  this?'  asks  father. 

"  '  Sure,'  say  I.    *  Nearly  everyone  does.' 

"  Don't  ask  me  how  they  got  the  money  together. 
I  hate  to  think  about  it.  It  makes  me  sick.  But 
they  got  it — enough  to  send  me  over  on  a  second- 
class  boat  that  I  thought  was  a  palace  till  we  had  our 
first  rough  day,  and  enough  to  keep  me — at  seven 
dollars  a  week — for  the  first  month.  They'd  starve 
and  they'd  pinch  and  they'd  borrow,  and  they'd  send 
me  the  rest  weekly. 

"  I  won't  tell  you  about  the  chill  I  got  when  I 
got  off  the  Antwerp  train  at  Gare  du  Nord,  and  I 
won't  tell  you  how  I  felt  when  I  found  that  the 
French  I'd  worked  up  was  no  more  French  than  it 
was  English — and  not  so  much.  What'd  be  the 
use  of  telling  you?  They  all  go  through  it,  those 
art  girls — nearly  everyone. 

"  Somebody'd  given  me  the  name  of  a  pension  on 
the  Rue  St.  Jacques,  and  I  went  there,  and  about  the 
time  I  owed  my  first  bill  I  remembered  that  I  hadn't 
counted  on  my  washing — that  I  hadn't  counted  much 
of  anything  in  that  thirty-five  francs  a  week.  Nearly 


44       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

everyone  makes  that  little  mistake — they  all  told  me 
so.  You  can't  be  happy  in  Paris  without  enough  to 
live  on  any  more  than  you  can  be  happy  while  you're 
starving  anywhere  else. 

"  I  don't  mean  that  I  really  starved.  I  only  mean 
that  I  had  to  miss  some  meals  and  had  to  skimp  the 
others.  I  mean  I  was  underfed  and  badly  clothed 
and  rather  badly  housed.  I  couldn't  ask  for  more 
money;  they  were  working  their  fingers  to  the  bone, 
back  in  Baltimore,  to  give  me  what  they  did  give, 
and  I  couldn't  have  had  it  in  my  heart  to  ask  for 
more,  even  if  they  had  more  to  send  me.  I  was  just 
homesick  and  lonely  and  poor. 

"  Well,  there's  no  use  giving  you  details.  I  guess 
you  can  see  how  it  was.  There  was  a  little  Italian 
boy,  a  student,  in  our  pension,  and  he  used  to  take 
me  out  for  a  stroll  up  the  Boul'  Miche'  of  an  evening, 
and  sometimes,  when  he  felt  flush,  we'd  stop  at  the 
Cafe  Pantheon  for  a  glass  of  coffee.  I  was  just  ready 
to  fall  into  anybody's  arms  when  he  told  me  he  loved 
me — that's  the  way  with  nearly  all  the  girls  over 
there;  but  I  knew  he  was  about  as  hard  up  as  I  was, 
and  so  I  asked  him  how  in  the  world  he  ever  ex- 
pected to  be  able  to  support  a  wife. 

"  You  ought  to  have  seen  his  face !  He  was  a 
pretty  boy,  with  curly  black  hair  and  the  big  black 
eyes  of  a  baby,  and  there  never  was  such  an  innocent 
child  as  he  was  when  he  answered. 

"  '  Why,'  he  told  me,  '  I  mean  we  can  do  better 
together,  keeping  house  in  a  little  studio  of  our  own, 
each  paying  a  share,  than  we  can  do  this  way  at  the 
pension.  Marriage?  Why  should  we  marry?  We 
love  each  other !  ' 


THE  GIRL  THAT  STUDIED  ART     45 

"  I  got  mad,  of  course,  and  I  asked  him  if  he 
really  meant  me  to  do  such  a  thing  as  he  proposed. 

"  *  Surely,'  says  he,  with  that  innocent  look  of 
his.  '  Up  here  nearly  everyone  does/ 

"Well,  I  wouldn't  speak  to  him  for  a  week;  but 
at  the  end  of  that  time,  the  idea  being  in  my  head,  I 
began  to  look  around,  and  I  found  that  what  he  told 
me  was  the  truth.  Most  of  the  girls  and  boys  were 
perfectly  frank  about  it — to  each  other — though 
you're  never  supposed  to  say  anything  about  it  to  an 
outsider.  Lots  and  lots  of  them  keep  house  that  way 
together,  because  they  say  it's  cheaper  and  more  com- 
panionable, and  most  of  them  separate  at  last,  per- 
fectly good  friends,  and  never  meet  again.  The  fel- 
low goes  away  and  marries  and  never  tells  his  wife, 
and  the  girl  goes  away  and  marries  and  lies  to  her 
husband. 

"  So  in  the  end  I  did  what  nearly  everyone  else 
did.  I  gave  in. 

"  We  had  a  little  room  at  the  top  of  a  house  in  a 
crooked  street  just  off  the  Rue  de  la  Sorbonne.  We 
tried  to  learn  to  cook  and  we  tried  harder  not  to  be 
lonely.  There  were  enough  couples  like  us  to  give 
us  plenty  of  company,  and  I  really  did  begin  to  get 
along  some  with  my  work. 

"  We  never  had  but  one  quarrel  that  was  any- 
ways serious.  Victor — that  was  his  name,  only  I 
always  called  him  Beppo — got  up  before  me  one 
morning  to  cook  the  breakfast,  because  I  wasn't  well. 
But  it  was  cold  and  he  was  cross,  and  when  he 
brought  the  coffee  and  rolls  over  and  I  spilled  the 
coffee,  he  slapped  the  tray  out  of  my  hand  and  then 
smacked  my  mouth.  I  burst  out  crying,  and  then — 


46       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

we  hadn't  heard  any  knocking,  because  of  the  noise 
we  made — the  door  opened,  and  there  was  Mother. 

"  My  mother  1 

"  An  uncle  of  hers  had  died.  I  remember  his 
name  was  Ezra  and  he  lived  in  Lowell,  Mass.  Well, 
he'd  died  and  left  her  five  hundred  dollars,  and  she'd 
come  over  to  Paris  as  a  surprise  for  me.  .  .  . 

"  We  got  home  somehow.  I  couldn't  tell  you 
how,  if  my  life  depended  on  it.  I  know  we  came  by 
the  next  boat.  I  tried  to  explain  to  her  that  all  I'd 
done  was  just  what  nearly  everyone  does,  but  you 
can't  explain  some  things  to  your  mother.  She  said 
she  wouldn't  tell  father  or  the  boys,  but  she  said  her 
heart  was  broken;  and  I  guess  it  was,  for  after 
father  was  killed  next  year  in  the  mill,  she  just  kind 
of  withered  up  and  died. 

"  You  might  think  that  would  be  the  end  of  me, 
but  it  wasn't.  I  saw  how  bad  I'd  been,  but  I  saw 
there  was  no  good  to  be  gained  by  only  crying,  so  I 
kept  my  crying  for  the  nighttime;  and  when  Jim 
married  and  went  to  'Frisco,  and  Charlie  married 
and  went  to  New  Orleans — Jim  and  Charlie  were 
my  brothers — I  traveled  with  Jim  as  far  as  St.  Louis 
and  tried  to  get  a  place  as  a  housekeeper. 

"  You  see,  I'd  worked  hard  since  I  got  back  from 
Paris.  Mother  had  taught  me  a  good  bit  about 
housework  there  toward  the  last,  and  I  was  still 
rather  young  and  pretty  and  I  had  got  a  little  polish 
from  my  trip  abroad. 

"  I  found  a  place.  It  was  in  the  house  of  a  well- 
to-do  man  that  had  just  lost  his  wife.  He  had  a 
little  daughter  and  didn't  want  his  home  broken  up. 
When  I  learned  he'd  lived  abroad  some,  I  just  didn't 


THE  GIRL  THAT  STUDIED  ART     47 

say  that  I  had,  too,  and  by  and  by  he  got  to  liking 
me,  and  at  last  we  were  married. 

"  We  started  West  on  our  wedding  trip.  He 
asked  me  questions.  I  did  what  nearly  everyone 
else  does  that  has  done  what  nearly  everyone  else 
does  over  in  the  Quarter — I  lied. 

"  But  somehow  I  didn't  lie  very  well.  Somehow 
I  let  it  out  that  I'd  been  an  American  student  in 
Paris.  I  guess  I'll  never  forget  the  look  that  came 
into  his  face  then. 

"*I  know  what  that  is,'  he  told  me;  *  for,  you 
see,  I  was  once  a  student  in  Paris  myself.' 

"  He  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  handed  me 
all  the  money  he  had  about  him. 

111  What's  this  mean?'  I  asked. 

"  *  It  means  that  you  can  go  as  far  as  this  train 
will  take  you,'  he  said;  '  but  I'm  going  to  get  off  at 
the  next  stop.' 

"  He  did,  too. 

"  I  went  on  to  St.  Jo.     I  got  here  a  year  later. 

I've  been  here  ever  since." 

******* 

The  woman  stopped  her  story.  I  looked  at  her 
again,  and  I  saw  that  her  life  had  nearly  completed 
its  work  upon  her. 

"  What  was  that  reason  you  gave  for  giving  in  to 
Beppo?"  I  asked  her. 

"  The  reason  was  that  I  was  just  doing  what 
nearly  everyone  else  does  over  there,"  said  she. 

"And  why  did  you  lie  to  your  husband?"  I  in- 
quired. 

"  I — I  don't  know.  Well,  I  suppose  I  was  just 
finishing  in  America  what  I'd  begun  in  Paris." 


THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL 

THERE  were  three  of  us  sitting  that  night  in 
the  office  of  a  Lieutenant  of  Police  in  Detroit. 
There  was  our  host,  the  Lieutenant;  there 
was  my  friend  Thorley,  and  there  was  I.  It  was  a 
Saturday  evening,  but  the  hour  was  still  too  early  for 
the  week-end  rush  of  arrests  to  begin,  and  so  we 
had  been  smoking  long  cigars  and  telling  long  stories. 
Apropos  of  one  of  these,  the  Lieutenant  made  a  not 
altogether  original  remark. 

"  Love,"  said  the  Lieutenant,  "  is  blind." 

I  nodded — after  all,  I  was  a  guest. 

But  Thorley  was  not  a  guest ;  his  was  one  of  those 
wonderful  souls  which  are  invited  everywhere,  but 
are  everywhere  at  home. 

"  Love,"  said  Thorley,  "  is  not  blind  by  nature,  it 
is  not  blind  at  birth;  the  wrong  lies  in  the  fact  that 
most  lovers,  being  too  weak  to  resist  modern  condi- 
tions, commit  the  infamous  crime  of  blinding  it.  We 
accept  old  aphorisms,  inherited  traditions,  worn-out 
conventions.  We  ask  no  questions — there  is  the 
fundamental  error — we  ask  no  questions.  Well,  we 
have  been  told  that  Love  must  be  blind;  and  so,  when 
we  find  our  love  seeing  little  human  needs  and  lacks  in 
the  loved  object,  instead  of  trying  to  supply  those 
needs  or  remedy  the  lacks — instead  of  being  true — we 
deliberately  heat  our  irons  of  lies  in  the  furnace  of 
48 


THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL      49 

convention,  and  with  them  we  burn  out  the  eyes  of 
Love." 

"  I  guess  you're  right,"  nodded  the  Lieutenant, 
with  the  air  of  a  man  that  hasn't  the  least  idea  what 
his  friend  is  talking  about.  "  Have  another  cigar." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Thorley.  He  chose  the  cigar 
carelessly,  bit  the  end  and  struck  a  match. 

I  was  sorry  for  the  bewildered  Lieutenant.  I 
wanted  to  rescue  him,  to  divert  the  conversation;  but 
I  could  think  of  nothing  more  diverting  than  the 
weather. 

"  It's  a  warm  night,"  said  I. 

"  Pretty  warm,"  replied  the  Lieutenant,  "  but  not 
so  bad  as  it  is  sometimes.  I  recollect  the  summer  of 
1898 — or  was  it  1899?  I  know  it  was  a  couple  of 
years  before  I  was " 

"Blind!"  interrupted  Thorley. 

He  spoke  from  the  midst  of  his  blue  smoke 
wreaths,  like  an  Hellenic  oracle.  It  was  as  if  the 
smoke  had  shut  from  him  the  trivial  sounds  of  our 
digression. 

"'Blind!"  repeated  Thorley.  "Yes,  we  blind 
Love.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  we  do  not  know 
we  do  it — still  less  how  much  we  do  it.  We  say  that 
Love  is  blind — and  what  do  we  mean?  We  mean 
that  the  man  and  woman  attracted  to  each  other  can't 
see  each  other's  faults.  I  tell  you  that  there  is  no 
love  so  blinded — I  refuse  the  form  '  blind  ' — I  tell 
you  that  there  is  no  love  so  blinded  as  the  love  of 
parent  for  child." 

The  Lieutenant  looked  at  me  and  grinned.  He 
grinned  openly,  as  if  to  say,  "  The  man's  started; 
he's  off;  there's  no  use  trying  to  stop  him.  We'd  a 


50       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

sight  better  just  sit  still  and  let  him  run  down." 
There  was  no  offense  in  the  grin;  the  Lieutenant 
knew,  and  I  knew,  that,  for  all  the  effect  that  they 
would  have  on  Thorley,  the  words  might  as  well  have 
been  shouted — and  Thorley  pursued: 

"  I  used  to  live  in  a  town  of  about  fifteen  thousand 
inhabitants,  some  seventy-odd  miles  from  St.  Paul. 
It  was  a  pretty  little  town.  It  was  as  clean  as  Sun- 
day, it  was  as  well  regulated  as  Swiss  watches  used 
to  be,  and  it  was  as  carefully  laid  out  as  if  it  had 
been  ready  for  its  funeral.  Mohawk — I  shall  call  the 
town  Mohawk,  for  the  excellent  reason  that  that  was 
not  its  name — Mohawk  was  proud  of  these  things. 
It  was,  moreover,  so  proud  of  the  fact  of  its  once 
having  been  able  to  get  along  without  a  police  force 
that  it  would  not  have  a  police  force  even  long  after 
crime  had  become  as  common  in  Mohawk  as  church- 
going  was.  People  said  that  the  organization  of  such 
a  force  would  '  reflect  upon  the  good  name  of  the 
town,'  which  was  absurd.  What  they  did  not  say 
was  that  it  would  also  raise  the  taxes,  which  was 
what  really  worried  them. 

"  But  the  greatest  pride  of  Mohawk  was  its  schools 
— its  public  schools.  It  had  eight  of  them,  including 
the  grammar  and  high  school,  and,  as  far  as  they 
went,  they  were  really  almost  equal  to  the  demands 
that  were  put  upon  them.  The  teachers  were  nearly 
all  Mohawk  girls;  the  superintendent  was  a  graduate 
of  some  little  college  in  the  foothills  of  Idaho,  and 
the  school  board,  which  was  regularly  re-elected  as 
fast  as  its  individual  terms  expired,  was  composed  of 
small  shopkeepers,  none  of  whom  had  ever  continued 
school  after  the  age  of  fifteen. 


THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL      51 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  this  school  board 
was  composed  of  one  person,  as  I  have  found  that 
most  school  boards  are  in  these  happy  days,  when  we 
still  leave  two-thirds  of  the  education  of  our  children 
to  the  tender  care  of  party  politics.  You  men  must 
be  aware  of  how  the  scheme  generally  works  out. 
One  member  of  the  board,  originally  no  better  quali- 
fied than  the  rest,  takes  an  interest  in  the  work  and 
makes  a  hobby  of  it — not  a  serious  occupation,  be- 
cause he  has  his  private  living  to  earn  and  his  polit- 
ical boss  to  please;  but  a  hobby.  He  likes  to  visit 
the  schoolrooms  and  have  the  teacher  defer  to  him 
and  the  children  look  awed.  He  likes  to  be  known  as 
a  Power.  Consequently  he  is  willing  to  undertake 
most  of  the  work;  and  the  rest  of  the  board,  having 
businesses  of  their  own,  are  quite  willing  to  let  him 
have  his  way.  They  elect  him  secretary,  both  corre- 
sponding and  recording;  they  tie  up  the  whole  job  in 
a  neat  little  package  and  place  it  in  his  lap,  and  go 
home  to  bed.  After  that,  they  meet  once  a  month 
and  vote  '  Aye  '  to  whatever  he  proposes — the  unvary- 
ing minority,  representative  of  the  other  party,  as 
consistently  and  ineffectually  voting  *  No  ' — and  so 
that  one  man  becomes  the  real  school  board.  It  was 
thus  in  Mohawk. 

"  In  Mohawk  the  school  board  was  composed,  in 
this  manner,  of  Mr.  Joel  Nilson.  Subject  to  the 
interference  of  the  municipal  boss,  he  ran  it.  In  all 
practical  matters  of  administration,  Nilson  was  It. 

"  I  do  not  propose  to  blackguard  Nilson.  He  was 
a  well-intentioned  man.  He  was  honest,  according 
to  the  prevailing  criteria.  His  father  had  held  the 
same  position  on  the  school  board  that  Joel  held,  and 


52       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Joel  so  honored  his  father  that  he  saw  nothing  but 
aspersions  upon  his  parent  in  every  proposition  that 
hinted  at  the  need  of  any  change  of  school  arrange- 
ment or  curriculum  from  the  system  that  the  elder 
Nilson  had  ordained  and  established. 

"  Nilson  had  a  wife  and  family,  and  I  never  knew 
a  man  more  devoted  to  his  children.  If  the  school 
board  was  his  hobby,  his  children  were  his  passion. 
There  were  four  of  them,  but  at  the  time  I'm  speak- 
ing of  only  one  of  them  remained  at  home.  This  was 
the  younger  girl,  and,  as  Nilson's  love  was  now  cen- 
tered upon  her — in  accordance  with  that  animal  law 
which  lessens  parental  affection  as  soon  as  the  off- 
spring can  shift  for  itself — I'll  tell  you  particularly 
about  her  in  a  moment. 

"  He  believed,  this  school  director,  in  all  the  old 
ideas  about  the  bringing  up  of  children,  and  he  had 
brought  up  his  own  children  accordingly.  Jim,  the 
eldest  of  the  lot,  had  left  Mohawk  when  he  was  only 
eighteen  or  nineteen;  had  married  one  of  his  neigh- 
bor's children  rather  suddenly — too  suddenly,  the 
other  neighbors  said — and  had  moved  to  Chicago, 
where  he  was  a  floor-walker  in  a  department  store 
and  didn't  get  on  well  with  his  wife.  George,  the 
second  boy,  but  the  third  child,  hadn't  turned  out  to 
be  the  marrying  kind;  he  was  rather  wild,  and,  the 
last  time  that  I  saw  him,  he  was  a  faro  dealer  down 
at  Durango — somewhere  in  Colorado  or  New 
Mexico,  I  remember.  Lou,  the  elder  daughter,  had 
been  married  off  before  she  had  a  chance  to  develop 
into  anything  positive — either  good  or  bad — to  a 
La  Crosse  lumber  dealer,  who  was  twice  her  age, 
but  had  plenty  of  money.  This  left  Lena,  the  youn- 


THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL      53 

gest,  at  home  and  just  about  to  enter  her  second  year 
in  the  high  school. 

"  I  wish  you  could  have  seen  Lena  as  I  saw  her 
then.  Beauty  is  a  quality  so  rare  that  we  have  de- 
spairingly dropped  into  the  habit  of  attributing  it  to 
mere  prettiness.  Very  small  children  are  occasion- 
ally beautiful,  and  some  women;  but  a  girl  at  the 
high-school  age — almost  never.  Well,  Lena  was  the 
exception. 

"  She  was  rather  tall  for  her  years,  but  her  figure 
was  developed  to  meet  every  requirement  of  her 
height — perfectly  developed,  without  any  of  that  ex- 
travagance at  any  one  point  which  means  poverty 
at  some  other — a  phenomenon  so  characteristic  of 
merely  pretty  people.  In  consequence,  she  had  grace 
of  the  only  absolute  sort — the  sort  that  is  uncon- 
scious. To  see  her  walk  made  you  remember  your 
own  school  days  and  Virgil's  goddesses,  as  you  then 
read  about  them  and  believed  in  them. 

"  I  don't  like  our  lazy  mental  method  of  classi- 
fying everything  as  one  '  type  '  or  another,  but  I 
suppose  you  fellows  would  better  understand  me  if 
I  said  that  Lena's  type  was  the  Scandinavian.  Of 
course  both  she  and  her  parents  were  Americans 
by  birth,  education,  and  ideals;  but  her  blood  was 
Norse,  and  she  showed  it.  Her  hair  was  very  plenti- 
ful and  fell  in  long  plaits  down  her  back,  far  below 
the  waist,  in  just  that  tone  of  ripe  corn  that  Ros- 
setti  loved  to  paint  and  write  about.  Her  skin 
was  clear  as  a  brook  and  as  pink  and  white  as  an  old- 
fashioned  English  rose  garden.  And  her  eyes  were 
large  and  round  and  as  blue  as  the  sea  at  Marseilles. 
Her  features  were  regular,  as  beautiful  features  have 


54      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

to  be,  and  accordingly  placid.  I  don't  say  she  was 
intellectual;  she  was  just  beautiful — just  beautiful 
and  good  and  competent  and  clean.  More  than  any- 
thing else,  she  reminded  me  of  an  early  morning 
in  spring,  when  the  sun  is  fresh  and  the  air  bracing, 
when  the  sky  is  clear,  and  the  dew  is  still  sparkling  in 
the  grass. 

"  Well — there  you  are.  Lena  didn't  stand  at  the 
head  of  her  school  class  and  she  didn't  stand  at  its 
foot.  She  knew  all  that  the  school  had  taught 
her;  she  was  fifteen  years  old,  and  she  thought  the 
doctor  brought  the  babies  to  one's  house  in  a 
basket. 

"  I  had  a  friend  in  Boston,  a  young  physician,  who 
had  written  what  I  thought  was  an  excellent  text- 
book in  physiology — excellent,  I  mean,  for  high-school 
use.  It  told  the  truth.  No  hemming  and  hawing,  no 
lies,  no  evasion.  No  undue  emphasis,  either,  or  any 
phrase  that  could  be  twisted  into  a  salacious  inter- 
pretation. Just  the  truth. 

"  Now,  there's  something  about  truth  that  proves 
the  fundamental  stability  of  real  morals.  I  don't 
mean  fake  morals,  or  mere  conventionalities,  or  twad- 
dling sentimentalism ;  but  that  bedrock  of  morality 
which  we  have  so  covered  up  with  the  soil  of  prudery 
and  the  dust  of  tradition  that  we  mostly  lose  thought 
of  it  altogether.  When  Truth  comes  into  a  room — 
even  a  schoolroom — she  may  bring  along  with  her 
some  companions  that  make  the  hard-shell  pedagogues 
gasp,  but  all  the  real  dirtiness  that  was  there  before 
her  flies  out  of  the  window.  Truth  is  just  ms  essen- 
tial an  enemy  of  smut  as  light  is  of  disease.  She 
demonstrates  the  other  eternal  verities. 


THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL      55 

"  But  most  of  us  are  afraid  of  Truth.  Perhaps 
that  is  only  another  manifestation  of  our  savage  in- 
heritance that  dreads  the  unfamiliar.  I  won't  say 
what  I  think  about  it;  I  only  point  to  the  fact,  and 
the  fact,  in  this  particular  instance,  was  that  no  pub- 
lic school  would  accept  my  friend's  little  volume  as  a 
text-book.  They  would  take  it  only  with  all  reference 
to  sex  omitted. 

"  He  wrote  me  so,  and  after  I'd  read  his  book  I 
was  on  fire  with  indignation.  I  resolved  to  see  what 
Mohawk  would  do  about  it,  and  I  set  out  that  night 
to  call  on  Joel  Nilson. 

"  I  remember  it  was  an  early  autumn  evening,  just 
before  the  reopening  of  school.  The  air  was  warm 
and  scented.  The  last  rays  of  pink  were  just  fading 
out  of  the  western  sky,  and,  though  the  moon  had 
not  yet  risen,  there  were  one  or  two  faint  stars  be- 
ginning to  glimmer  in  the  east. 

"  I  lived  outside  of  the  town,  and  my  way  into  it 
lay  along  a  curving  lane,  heavily  shaded.  As  I 
turned,  that  evening,  one  of  the  corners  in  that  lane, 
I  came  upon  a  boy  and  girl  standing  facing  each  other. 
I  think  they  had  been  holding  hands.  I  know  they 
drew  apart  rather  sharply  as  I  came  into  view, 
and,  whatever  they  had  been  talking  about,  they 
stood  quite  silent  till  I  had  passed.  The  boy 
was  Mark  Higgins,  son  of  old  Billy  Higgins,  the 
political  boss  of  Mohawk,  and  the  girl  was  Lena 
Nilson. 

"  Generally  speaking,  Fate  lacks  the  commonly  ac- 
cepted view  of  what  constitutes  the  dramatic  instinct 
— lacks  it  or  differs  with  it.  Not  to-night,  however. 
When  I  got  to  Nilson's  house,  Joel  was  sitting  on  the 


56       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

porch  and  old  Billy  Higgins  was  sitting  beside 
him. 

"  I  told  them  about  my  friend's  book.  I  went  over 
by  the  parlor  window,  and  there,  in  the  little  light 
that  came  through  from  a  lamp  inside,  I  read  them 
the  revolutionary  passages. 

"  It  was  already  dark  on  the  porch  and  I  couldn't 
very  well  see  my  audience.  Joel's  figure  was  only  a 
tall,  lank,  stoop-shouldered  silhouette,  puffing  at  a 
pipe.  Higgins  was  smoking  a  cigar,  and  when  he 
drew  on  it  I  could  just  get  a  glimpse  of  his  round, 
fat,  good-natured,  but  altogether  non-committal  face. 

"  After  I  had  finished  reading,  they  sat  for  a 
while,  smoking  in  silence.  It  was  clear  that  Nilson, 
utterly  dumfounded,  was  waiting  for  his  chief  to 
deliver  the  directing  opinion.  What  Higgins  was 
waiting  for  wasn't  clear  at  all. 

'"  Well?  'said  Billy  at  last. 

"  I  said  nothing. 

"  '  Gee ! '  said  Nilson.  '  What  do  you  think  of  it, 
Higgins?  ' 

"  Higgins  smoked  for  a  bit — perhaps  to  marshal 
his  mazed  faculties. 

"  *  I  think,'  he  at  last  decided,  '  that  the  schools 
that  turned  down  that  book  didn't  do  enough;  they 
ought  to  Ve  jailed  that  doctor  for  printin'  it.' 

"  I  suppose  I  should  have  expected  this,  but  I 
hadn't. 

"'What  do  you  mean?'  I  demanded.  'Isn't  it 
the  truth  ?  * 

"  Nilson  answered  me. 

"  '  Truth?  '  said  he.  '  Course  it's  the  truth.  But 
what's  that  got  to  do  with  it?  This  world's  full  of 


THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL      57 

evil,  but,  just  because  the  evil's  here  and  so  is  true, 
do  you  think  that's  any  reason  for  corruptin'  inno- 
cent children  by  fillin'  their  minds  with  it?  I  never 
heard  o'  such  a  proposition ! ' 

"  I  tried  to  be  patient. 

"  *  You  don't  call  these  particular  bodily  functions 
evil,  do  you  ?  '  I  asked. 

' '  I  call  'em  somethin'  they  isn't  any  need  to  talk 
about — still  less  to  fill  up  children's  brains  with  'em. 
Do  you  think  I'd  allow  my  daughter  to  be  taught 
such  stuff  ?  ' 

"  *  But  they  all  have  to  learn ' 

"  *  They'll  learn  soon  enough.' 
' '  From  whom  ?  Where  are  your  eyes,  Mr.  Nil- 
son?  Can't  you  see  from  whom  they'll  learn  if  left 
alone — from  whom  they  have  learned  or  are  learn- 
ing? From  themselves  or  from  older  children,  who, 
in  their  turn,  have  learned  from  themselves — and  all 
learned  wrong,  all  learned  dirt  instead  of  truth,  all 
learned  their  own  ruin !  ' 

"'Rot!'  said  Billy  Higgins. 

"  *  Worse'n  that !  '  declared  Nilson.  '  It's  wicked- 
ness— that's  what  it  is — open  wickedness  an'  un- 
ashamed !  Think  o'  my  Lena  or  Billy's  Mark !  You 
have  a  nice  opinion  o'  your  neighbors'  children,  Mr. 
Thorley,  I  must  say !  You  have  a  nice  opinion  o' 
your  fellow-townspeople!  Learnin'  dirt,  indeed! 
What  sort  of  a  town  do  you  think  this  is,  anyhow? 
For  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  we've  had  the  best 
public  schools  of  any  place  our  size  in  the  State,  an' 
I  guess  what's  been  so  good  all  that  time's  pretty  good 
enough  to-day.  Learnin'  dirt!  Why,  it's  just  dirt 
that  you're  askin'  us  to  teach  'em !  ' 


58       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  *  It  ain't  decent,'  threw  in  Higgins. 

"  *  It's  truth,'  I  doggedly  persisted.  You  can't 
argue  with  a  man  unless  you  have  some  inch  of  agree- 
ment with  him  from  which  to  start,  and  I  was 
younger  then  and  so  could  only  blunder  about 
fundamentals. 

'  *  So's  thievin'  the  truth,'  said  Nilson,  swaying 
his  pipe  for  emphasis ;  *  but  that's  no  reason  for 
teachin'  our  children  how  to  steal.' 

"  '  You  teach  them  honesty.  Why  not  teach  them 
purity  as  well  ?  ' 

"  '  We  do  teach  'em  purity.' 

"  'Where?  Not  in  the  schools,  Mr.  Nilson,  be- 
cause your  school  physiologies  lie  by  suppressing  the 
most  essential  facts  of  the  whole  subject  that  they  pre- 
tend to  teach.  Not  in  your  homes,  because  there  you 
begin  by  answering  your  children's  questions  by  fairy 
tales  that  are  direct  falsehoods;  and  when  they  dis- 
cover that  these  fairy  tales  of  birth  are  falsehoods, 
you  merely  try  to  stop  them  from  thinking  by  a  few 
futile  commands.  The  only  way  that  we  try  to  teach 
purity  is  by  a  weak  silence.  Real  purity  is  something 
positive;  it  isn't  negative.  It's  action,  not  stagnation. 
When  a  man  expects  to  be  attacked,  he  prepares 
himself  for  it;  he ' 

"  *  Well,'  said  Higgins,  *  we  think  a  little  too  much 
of  our  children  to  believe  they'll  attack  one  another. 
We  haven't  got  no  slums  in  Mohawk.' 

"  '  You  have  human  nature ! ' 

"  *  We  have  decent  men  an'  women  for  our  teach- 
ers. How  do  you  suppose  we  could  ask  our  teachers 
to  embarrass  themselves  by  teachin'  such  things  to  a 
roomful  o'  sniggerin'  boys  or  girls  ?  ' 


THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL      59 

"  4  It  strikes  me  that  you  think  rather  poorly  of 
our  boys  and  girls,'  I  answered,  *  if  you  think  they 
would  giggle  over  such  subjects  properly  put  before 
them,  and  rather  poorly  of  our  teachers  if  you  sup- 
pose that  they ' 

"  But  Nilson  interrupted  this  time. 
*  *  It's  all  crazy,'  he  declared;  *  just  crazy  badness. 
How  do  the  cattle  learn  these  things  ?  * 

4  They    have    instinct;    whereas   man,    being    a 
civilized  animal ' 

"  '  Nonsense,  Mr.  Thorley !     Nature  provides.' 

44  I  got  to  my  feet.  I  saw  that  protest  was  useless, 
yet  I  couldn't  resist  a  parting  thrust. 

4  4  Nature,'  said  I,  4  provides  the  impulse;  but  man 
has  so  directed  Nature  in  everything  else  that  he  has 
to  direct  her  in  this  if  he  wants  her  to  conform  to  his 
own  ideas  of  direction.  Where  is  your  daughter  this 
evening,  Mr.  Nilson  ?  ' 

44  4  Eh?  Lena?  What's  she  got  to  do  with  this? 
She's  over  to  Sally  Schmidt's;  they're  studyin'  their 
geometry  together  against  school's  openinV 

4  4  And,  Mr.  Higgins,  where  is  Mark?  I  pre- 
sume he  is  at  a  friend's  house,  too — studying  his 
mythology  ? ' 

44  Higgins  was  a  sharper  man  than  Joel.  He  gave 
no  direct  answer. 

44  4  My  boy's  old  enough  to  take  care  of  himself,' 
he  said. 

44  4 1  don't  mean  to  imply,'  I  went  on,  4  that  there 
is  any  harm  in  it,  but  as  I  came  into  town,  two  miles 
away  from  the  Schmidt  house,  I  saw  Mark  and 
Lena  in  Lowrey's  Lane.' 

"  I  put  on  my  hat  and  went  down  the  walk  and 


60       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

through  the  gate.  Thefy  .called  me  back,  but  I 
wouldn't  turn. 

"  A  few  days  later  I  had  business  that  took  me  to 
Minneapolis  for  some  weeks.  After  that  I  went  to 
Daytona  for  my  first  winter  in  Florida.  I  didn't  get 
back  to  Mohawk  for  any  real  stay  until  eighteen 
months  later. 

"  When  I  did,  I  learned  what  had  happened.  Joel 
had  spanked  his  daughter  and  locked  her  up  in  her 
room  for  a  day  and  let  it  go  at  that.  If  he  gave  her 
any  reason  for  her  punishment — except  in  so  far  as 
it  was  a  punishment  for  a  lie — he  told  her  only  that 
he  wouldn't  have  no  daughter  o'  his  spoonin'  around 
country  lanes  with  boys  after  dark,  and  he  com- 
manded her  never  to  repeat  an  offense  neither  the 
cause  nor  danger  of  which  he  ever  elucidated. 
Mark's  father  merely  told  his  son  not  to  be  such  a 
fool  as  to  make  calf's  love  to  young  girls. 

"  The  result  was  probably  inevitable.  Both  cul- 
prits regarded  their  chastisement  as  arbitrary  and  rea- 
sonless. They  disobeyed  the  commands.  Lena,  in 
the  town's  phrase,  '  got  into  trouble,'  and  Mark, 
again  in  the  town's  phrase,  was  *  responsible.'  I  have 
my  own  ideas  as  to  who  was  really  responsible.  Any- 
how, Mark  never  recovered  from  the  disgrace — I 
think  he  eloped  with  one  of  the  waitresses  in  the 
railway  station's  cafe  some  years  later.  His  father 
had  defended  Mark  against  Lena's  charges.  Lena, 
when  she  saw  that  her  own  chances  were  hopeless, 

left  town — ran  away  alone." 

******* 

Thorley  paused.    He  lit  a  fresh  cigar. 
"Is  that  all?"  asked  the  Lieutenant. 


THE  FATHER  THAT  WAS  CAREFUL      61 

"  Quite,"  said  Thorley.     "  The  rest  doesn't  really 
matter." 

"  But  you  didn't  see  the  girl  again  ?  " 
"  Oh,  yes,  I  did.     I  saw  her  this  evening.     I  saw 
her  as  I  was  going  through  the  cell-room  here.    You 
know  her.    She  was  arrested  a  little  early  this  week." 


VI 

THE  GIRL  THAT  WASN'T  TOLD 

NEITHER  of  us  who  saw  the  end  of  this  story 
can  soon  forget  it.  Even  here,  where  I  write 
it — with  the  peaceful  Jura  landscape  stretch- 
ing out  before  me — the  scene  of  its  telling  becomes 
again  clear.  Looking  from  the  window  of  a  mountain- 
side inn  at  Mesnay-Arbois,  I  see  the  white-capped 
peaks  of  the  nearer  Alps  descending  through  steep 
gradations  of  pine-cloaked  slopes  and  ending  in  tre- 
mendous cliffs,  from  the  foot  of  which,  cut  by  straight, 
white  roads,  sprinkled  with  pink  vineyards  and  dotted 
by  quiet,  centuries-old  villages,  the  rich  plain  stretches 
eastward  as  far  as  the  eye  can  follow  it.  But  from 
me,  as  I  turn  to  my  story,  all  these  things  pass. 

Instead,  I  see  the  narrow,  high-ceilinged  room, 
with  its  double  row  of  iron-framed  beds.  I  see  the 
young,  careless  doctor,  passing  down  the  aisle.  I  see 
the  calm  nurse,  gliding  from  patient  to  patient.  And 
on  the  pillows  before  me  I  see  a  face 

The  summons  had  reached  us  at  dawn.  A  hospital 
attendant  had  come  to  our  tenement,  climbed  the 
seven  flights  of  stairs  and  knocked  at  the  door. 

"  There's  a  girl  that  wants  to  see  you,"  he  told  us. 
"  She  says  she  used  to  live  next  door,  an'  once  you 
loaned  her  a  ten-spot.  She  says  you'd  know  her  by 
that." 

"Is  it  Marie?" 

62 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WASN'T  TOLD        63 

The  messenger  grinned. 

"  It  might  be  most  anything,"  he  answered. 
"  She's  down  on  our  books  as  Doris  White.  But  she 
wants  to  see  you  two,  an'  I  guess  you'd  better  be 
quick;  she  won't  last  any  too  long." 

"She's— she's  dying?" 

"  Fast." 

"What  is  the  trouble?" 

"  What  you  might  suppose.  Will  you  wait  an' 
take  a  chance  o'  missin'  her,  or  will  you  come  now?  " 

We  went  with  him. 

It  was  Marie,  this  Doris — Marie,  who  had  also 
been  Vivian,  and  who,  when  her  mother  had  pre- 
sented the  pink-and-white  bundle  at  the  church  font 
eighteen  years  before,  had  been  christened  Ada.  She 
looked  at  us  out  of  eyes  that  had  burned  deep  into 
her  head.  The  skin — here  leprously  pale  and  there 
scrofulously  red — was  drawn  as  tightly  as  a  new  glove 
over  the  out-thrusting  bones  of  her  face.  And  when 
she  saw  us  enter  she  smiled.  .  .  . 

It  was  thus  that  she  told  us  her  story. 

Ada's  parents  had  lived  in  a  prosperous  little  city 
of  Massachusetts,  and  had  in  some  measure  partaken 
of  that  city's  prosperity.  Their  only  trouble  was 
that  the  prosperity  was  acquired  and  not  inherited — 
the  family  traditions  were  of  the  sort  that,  being 
the  product  of  penury,  continue,  even  when  applied 
to  morals,  to  be  penurious.  The  ancestors  had  been 
forced  to  pinch  their  pennies;  the  descendants,  freed 
from  that  need,  indulged  the  racial  trait,  though  in 
the  direction  of  physical  instruction.  They  could  af- 
ford to  give  their  children  pin-money,  but  they  con- 
sidered it  highly  improper  to  tell  them  the  truth. 


64       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Of  these  children  there  were  two :  a  boy  and  Ada. 
The  boy,  as  boys  will — if  their  parents  do  not  an- 
ticipate them — learned  for  himself,  and,  as  boys  so 
neglected  will,  learned  wrongly.  Consequently,  he 
was  at  school  what  they  politely  called  "  backward  " 
because  it  would  never  do  to  give  these  things  their 
real  name.  Consequently,  he  grew — if  that  may 
be  termed  u  growth  "  which  is  really  degeneration — 
to  be  what  they  still  politely  called  "  a  little  wild  " — 
still  because  the  correct  term  is  "improper."  And, 
again  consequently — a  final  consequence  that  removes 
him  from  this  history — he  got  at  last  into  what  they 
designated  "  trouble  "  (which  means  that  he  brought 
trouble  on  somebody  else),  and,  having  "got  into 
trouble,"  promptly  "  got  out  " — of  the  town. 

The  boy  was  by  five  years  Ada's  elder,  and  his 
parents  had  learned  nothing  from  their  experience 
with  him.  When  the  girl  arrived  at  the  age  when 
she  should  have  had  their  advice,  her  brother  was 
just  entering  the  "  wild  "  period,  and,  though  his 
good  father  and  mother  were  vaguely  worried  by 
such  casual  evidences  thereof  as  reached  them,  they 
neither  thought  to  question  either  the  theory  that 
begins  by  considering  a  boy's  mind  forbidden  ter- 
ritory and  ends  with  an  assumption  of  the  necessity 
for  "  wild  oats,"  nor  yet  to  reflect  that,  this  world 
being  what  it  is,  the  mind  of  a  girl  may  require  a  little 
attention. 

With  both  children  their  system  of  upbringing 
possessed  the  virtue  of  simplicity.  With  their  son  it 
grouped  the  whole  matter  of  physical  phenomena 
under  a  rule  of  non-interference.  With  their  daugh- 
ter it  divided  those  phenomena  under  the  two  heads : 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WASN'T  TOLD        65 

"  Things  that  may  be  explained  in  words  of  one 
syllable  "  and  "  Things  that  one  doesn't  speak  about." 

"Why?"  said  Ada. 

That  portentous  query  was  continually  upon  her 
lips.  If  the  answer  fell  under  the  former  head,  they 
gave  it  readily;  but  if  it  belonged  to  the  latter  group, 
they  replied: 

"  You  are  too  young  to  understand." 

"  You  will  find  out  for  yourself  in  good  time." 

"  That  is  something  that  isn't  discussed." 

A  common  way  to  bring  up  a  girl,  and  an  easy 
way — for  the  parents. 

It  was  not,  however,  so  easy  for  Ada.  She  began 
by  being  puzzled.  Then  she  resolved  to  unravel  the 
mystery  by  inquiring  of  other  children's  mothers;  and 
when  the  other  children's  mothers  were  equally  cryp- 
tic, she  was  forced  to  put  the  query  from  her  mind 
until  that  now  seemingly  marvelous  time  when,  grow- 
ing old  enough  to  understand,  the  answer  should  pre- 
sent itself  beyond  all  discussion. 

That  time  came,  as  in  the  carefully  shaped  circum- 
stances it  was  bound  to  do,  just  when  Ada  was  worst 
prepared  to  meet  it. 

At  fifteen  the  girl  was  ignorant  of  all  the  things 
that  her  parents  said  were  not  generally  discussed. 
She  was  the  perfect  product  of  her  domestic  train- 
ing— in  respect  of  what  she  did  not  know,  she 
was  all  that  her  father  and  mother  wanted  her 
to  be. 

Does  that  surprise  you?  If  it  does,  you  are  one 
of  two  things:  either  you  are  a  man  from  almost 
anywhere,  or  else  you  are  a  woman  trained  in  the  sort 
of  metropolitan  atmosphere  that — well,  that  Ada 


66       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

was  not  trained  in.  There  are  a  great  many  men  that 
commonly  say  it  is  impossible  for  any  girl  to  reach 
the  age  of  fifteen  and  not  be  what  they  call  "  wise  " ; 
but  such  men  merely  arouse  unpleasant  reflections  as 
to  the  sort  of  persons  their  mothers  and  sisters  must 
be.  And  there  are  a  few  women  that  occasionally  say 
the  same  thing;  but  they  are  all,  one  way  or  another, 
women  whose  own  knowingness  was,  to  put  it  mildly, 
precocious.  The  truth  is  that  most  girls,  if  not  prop- 
erly taught,  learn  little  of  these  matters  until  they 
reach  the  age  at  which  marriage  becomes  possible — 
a  fact  whereof  the  divorce  statisticians  would  do  well 
to  take  cognizance  and  one  that  sufficiently  explains 
what  happened  to  Ada. 

Ada  had  been  to  school — at  any  rate,  she  was  at- 
tending what,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  we  call 
a  school — and  there,  of  course,  she  learned  something 
about  everything  but  herself.  She  could  solve  prob- 
lems in  algebra;  she  could  decline  any  noun  belong- 
ing to  the  first  Latin  declension;  once  a  week  she 
cultivated  the  delights  of  English  through  the  medium 
of  what  was  entitled  "  Sentence  Structure  and  Para- 
graph Work  " ;  she  was  able  to  give,  on  demand,  the 
dates  of  all  the  British  Kings  and  American  Presi- 
dents, and,  after  some  thought,  she  would  manage  to 
tell  her  French  teacher  the  amazing  news  that 
"  I'oncle  du  frere  de  ma  tante  a  des  souliers" 

Didn't  they  teach  physiology?  Indeed,  yes !  In  the 
grammar  school  they  had  given  lessons  from  a  little 
book — lessons  that  provided  all  the  information  which 
it  is  "  nice  "  for  a  young  girl  to  know.  In  the  third 
year  of  the  high  school,  if  the  pupil  so  long  survived, 
she  would  get  the  same  thing  over  again,  with  more 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WASN'T  TOLD        67 

details.  She  would  be  taught  the  effects  of  tobacco 
on  the  heart;  she  would  be  shown  beautifully  colored 
pictures  of  a  drunkard's  stomach;  she  would  even 
know  all  of  the  bones  by  name ;  she  would  understand 
all  about  a  human  being  save  how  he  came  to  be 
alive  and  how  his  kind  continues.  Then,  if  she  went 
to  college,  she  could  take  up  biology — if  she  cared 
to;  and  when  she  began  that  study,  she  would 
find  her  instructors  assuming  that  she  had  absorbed 
from  the  circumambient  atmosphere  the  things  that 
nobody  had  bothered  to  tell  her  at  home  or  at 
school. 

"  But  we  needn't  worry  about  Ada,"  sighed  her 
contented  mother.  "  She  has  an  inquiring  mind, 
which  is  a  pity,  but  she  is  very  calm." 

She  was  calm — calm  by  the  constant,  unremitting 
exercise  of  all  the  powers  of  suppression  that  her 
young  soul  could  master;  calm  through  a  sort  of 
chronic  hysteria.  She  had  now  supplied  temporary 
answers  to  the  questions  that  none  of  her  natural 
teachers  would  reply  to,  and  those  answers  were 
totally  wrong.  She  had  built  makeshift  walls  to  fill 
the  gaps  in  the  school  physiologies,  and  those  walls 
were  just  the  sort  over  which  the  enemy  could  best 
enter.  When  she  was  with  her  parents,  she  was  what 
they  happily  considered  a  model  child;  but,  alone, 
she  had  depths  of  which  they  never  dreamed.  Ig- 
norance, you  see — not  innocence.  She  was  like — she 
was  like  a  little  girl  that  you  know. 

Then  Ada's  aunt,  who  lived  in  Boston,  wrote,  ask- 
ing Ada  to  pass  the  Christmas  holidays  in  that  city. 
Ada,  of  course,  wanted  to  go. 

"  But  this  is  my  busy  season,"  protested  her  fa- 


68       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

ther.  "  I  can't  leave  the  store,  and  your  mother  has 
already  been  to  town  for  her  Christmas  shopping,  so 
she  can't  take  you." 

"  I  am  old  enough  to  go  alone,"  said  the  child. 

"  Why,  Ada !  "  It  was  her  mother  that  uttered 
this  ejaculation,  and  the  words  were  an  established 
formula  of  condemnation  for  the  expression  of  any 
sentiment  that  was  "  unladylike." 

"  I  don't  care !  "  pouted  Ada.    "  I'm  fifteen !  " 

She  kept  it  up  and  she  won.  That  was  to  be  ex- 
pected: the  sort  of  parental  "  protection  "  that  keeps 
a  girl  in  ignorance  of  fundamental  facts  is  always  the 
sort  that,  when  the  test  arrives,  places  its  charge  in 
precisely  the  position  where  the  ignorance  is  most 
likely  to  prove  fatal.  Ada's  aunt  was  commanded, 
by  letter,  to  meet  a  particular  train  at  the  South 
Station ;  the  conductor  was  cautioned  to  "  keep  an  eye 
on  "  his  young  passenger,  and  Ada,  much  kissed  and 
elaborately  instructed,  was  taken,  by  her  father,  to  a 
seat  in  the  car. 

The  car  was  crowded,  but  there  were  a  few  of  the 
double  seats  that  still  had  only  one  occupant  each, 
and  over  these  the  cautious  guardian  cast  a  deliberat- 
ing glance. 

In  the  first  sat  a  stolid  Italian,  with  a  red  ban- 
danna handkerchief  about  his  dark  throat;  obviously 
he  would  not  do,  because  he  was  a  foreigner,  and,  of 
course,  all  foreigners  are  villains.  The  second  pos- 
sible place  was  partially  secured  by  a  young  Ameri- 
can, but  the  fact  that  he  was  young  and  of  the 
father's  sex  were  against  him.  In  the  third  seat  there 
was  a  woman,  but  she  looked  poor — which  meant  dirt 
and  roguery — and,  besides,  she  had  opened  the  win- 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WASN'T  TOLD        69 

dow.  It  is  only  in  European  trains  that  citizens  of 
the  United  States  develop  a  passion  for  fresh-air-by- 
rail.  Ada's  father  chose  for  his  daughter  the  fourth 
and  last  vacant  place,  because  it  was  beside  a  woman 
stout  enough  to  be  matronly  and  so  very  well  dressed 
that  she  must  be  respectable. 

"  May  my  little  girl  sit  here?"  asked  the  guard- 
ian, making  his  best  bow. 

The  lady — you  could  tell  she  was  a  lady  by  the 
elaborate  coiffure  that  even  her  modest  but  expensive 
hat  was  unable  completely  to  conceal — the  lady 
looked  up  and  smiled.  Then  she  looked  at  Ada  and 
smiled  more  sweetly. 

"  By  all  means,"  she  said.  "  I  shall  be  charmed. 
Is  she  going  alone?  " 

She  was  enveloped — the  lady — in  a  handsome 
traveling  cloak,  so  that  her  clothes  were  not  much  in 
evidence.  Also  her  hands  were  gloved. 

"Quite  alone,"  said  the  father;  "but  her  aunt 
is  to  meet  her." 

"At  Boston?" 

"  Yes." 

"At  Back  Bay?" 

"No;  at  the  South  Station.  I  have  asked  the 
conductor  to  keep  an  eye  on  her,  but  if  you " 

The  father  hesitated.    Not  so  the  lady. 

"  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  her  safely  into  her  aunt's 
care,"  said  she. 

That  sufficed.  The  father  dismounted  and  the 
train  pulled  out  of  the  station.  The  lady  opened 
her  traveling  cloak  and  disclosed  the  most  beautiful 
gown  that  Ada  had  ever  seen.  Then  the  lady  drew 
off  her  gloves,  and,  as  the  child's  eyes  grew  large 


70       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

with  admiration  of  the  flashing  rings  thus  exposed, 
she  patted  Ada's  hand. 

"  How  old  are  you,  my  dear?  "  asked  the  lady. 

"  I  am  past  fifteen,"  said  Ada. 

"  Indeed?    You  look  two  years  older." 

Ada  blushed — she  did  not  know  why,  but  there 
were  many  things  about  herself  that  she  did  not 
know,  so  she  changed  the  smile  to  a  frown. 

"  I  wish  I  was,"  said  Ada. 

"Wish  you  were  older?  Don't  do  that.  Age 
comes  soon  enough.  You  are  very  pretty  as  you  are. 
You  are  extremely  pretty.  Don't  all  the  boys  tell 
you  so?" 

Ada  did  not  like  this  familiarity,  but  it  came  so 
suddenly  that,  before  she  was  aware  of  her  own  sen- 
sation, she  had  replied  that  she  was  not  allowed  to 
see  many  boys  and  that  she  hated  those  whom  she 
did  see. 

44  Why,  I  think  a  girl  should  be  allowed  to  know 
lots  of  boys,"  said  the  lady.  "  There  are  some  lovely 
boys  that  live  near  me.  Why  don't  you  like  boys?  " 

"  They're  conceited — and  bad." 

"  Oh,  that  depends  on  the  particular  ones.  The 
boys  I  know  have  lovely  manners  and  they  are  for- 
ever taking  their  girl  friends  to  the  theater  and  send- 
ing them  candy  and " 

"  I  guess  city  boys  are  different  from  town  boys," 
interrupted  Ada. 

"  The  boys  that  live  near  me  are  different,"  said 
the  lady;  and  she  went  on  to  tell  Ada  a  great  deal 
about  them. 

Shortly  after  this,  noticing  the  girl's  eyes  fixed  on 
her  rings,  the  lady  expressed  her  surprise  that  such 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WASN'T  TOLD        71 

pretty  fingers  as  Ada's  should  be  undecorated,  and 
she  "  loaned  "  Ada  a  circlet  of  gold  in  which  sparkled 
two  diamonds.  The  younger  passenger  accepted  the 
"  loan  "  with  a  sullen  face,  but  a  softening  heart. 

"I'll  tell  you  what  we'll  do,"  said  the  lady. 
"  We'll  take  your  aunt  to  luncheon  when  we  arrive, 
and  then  we'll  get  an  automobile  and  drive  to  the 
theater  for  the  matinee." 

And  next?  Well,  next  the  train  rolled  into  the 
Back  Bay  Station,  and,  as  one  Boston  station  was  as 
another  to  Ada,  and  as  the  conductor  happened  to  be 
just  as  busy  as  the  lady  expected  that  he  would  be, 
the  lady  had  no  difficulty  in  getting  Ada  from  their 
car  at  that  point,  had  small  trouble  in  explaining  that 
the  aunt  must  have  misunderstood  the  directions  con- 
cerning what  train  was  to  be  met  and  had  no  really 
great  annoyance  in  bringing  Ada  to  the  lady's  own 
house. 

All  this  was  on  a  Monday.  On  another  Monday, 
three  weeks  later,  Ada  was  shipped  to  New  York. 
In  that  short  time  she  had  found  an  answer  to  some 
of  the  questions  that  nobody  had  previously  answered 
for  her.  This  answer,  too,  was  a  wrong  one,  but  it 
was  also  a  living  one.  How  comparatively  brief  a 
time  elapsed  before  we  heard  her  story  in  the  hospital, 
you  have  already  estimated.  Ada — just  an  ordinary  x 
girl,  not  at  all  a  vicious  girl — had  become  a  common 
prostitute. 

As  that  she  lived  and  as  that  she  died. 

"I  didn't  know!"  she  wailed.   .    .    . 

I  can  see  her  yet— here,  with  the  peaceful  valley 
of  the  Jura  outstretched  before  us,  we  can  both  see 
her  yet — in  the  hospital  bed,  with  eyes  that  had 


72       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

burned  deep  into  her  skull,  with  the  skin,  now  lep- 
rously  pale  and  again  scrofulously  red,  drawn  tight 
and  shining  over  the  out-thrusting  bones  of  her  face. 
And  once  she  smiled.  .  .  . 

"  I  didn't  know.  I  wasn't  bad,  but  I'd  just  never 
been  told.  Is  it  fair?  Do  you  think  it  is  fair?  Oh, 
if  I'd  only  been  told!"  .  .  . 

After  all,  this  is  a  dull  story  and  a  commonplace. 


VII 

THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  ROMANTIC 

«  T  ASSURE  you,"  she  said,  "  that  the  case  is  in 
no  wise  remarkable.  There  are,  in  every  con- 
siderable American  city,  men  that  go  in  for 
this  sort  of  thing.  Their  real  business  is  the  securing 
of  young  girls  for  the  white-slave  traffic;  but,  in  order 
to  protect  themselves  and  in  order  to  pick  up  a  little 
money  '  on  the  side,'  as  they  call  it,  they  procure 
licenses  from  the  unsuspecting  or  uncaring  courts  and 
manufacture  perjured  evidence  for  persons  wanting 
divorces.  In  other  words,  they  are  that  most  un- 
speakable of  scavengers — private  detectives." 

This  phase  of  the  business  was  at  that  time  new  to 
me,  and  I  said  so. 

"  I  knew,"  I  told  her,  "  that  the  average  private 
detective  is  an  unclean  toad,  but  I  didn't  know  that 
he  would  dare " 

"Why  not?"  she  interrupted.  "  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  no  daring  is  required.  He  wouldn't  attempt 
it  if  any  were.  Detectives  are  not  brave  men;  the 
nature  of  their  work  makes  bravery  and  honesty  alike 
impossible.  When  the  detective  is  a  white-slaver, 
his  position  makes  him  absolutely  safe.  He  black- 
mails the  erring  wife  and  entraps  the  romantic  girl — 
and  he  is  protected  by  his  badge  on  the  one  hand,  and 
on  the  other  by  the  hold  that  his  alleged  business 
gives  him  a  chance  to  get  over  his  victim.  I  have 

73 


74       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

had  good  reasons  to  look  into  the  matter  and  I  have 
found  that  what  I  say  is  true  over  all  the  land." 

She  was  sitting  in  the  office  of  a  well-known  girls' 
school  in  Indiana — one  of  the  teachers  regularly  em- 
ployed there.  As  I  looked  at  her  handsome,  serious, 
refined  face,  I  felt  come  over  me  the  chill  of  con- 
viction ;  and  later,  acting  on  what  she  now  proceeded 
to  tell  me,  I  discovered  that,  at  least  in  many  in- 
stances, what  she  said  was  the  truth. 

"  Five  years  ago,"  she  went  on,  "  I  was  connected 
with  a  school  in  Philadelphia.  There  I  knew  inti- 
mately— you  see,  I  am  still  young — the  girl  of  whom 
I  am  about  to  speak. 

"  The  girl — we  shall  call  her  Madelaine — was  not 
in  any  way  different  from  a  great  many  other  girls. 
She  was  a  strong,  willful,  full-blooded  child — a  good 
deal  of  a  *  tomboy  ' — but  with  no  more  harm  in  her 
than  there  is  in  the  purely  feminine  type.  By  the 
time  she  came  to  be  eighteen  and  was  just  ready 
for  her  college  examinations,  she  was  as  pretty  as  a 
picture — pink-cheeked,  brown-eyed,  golden-haired, 
and  as  powerful  of  muscle  as  most  boys  of  her  age. 
She  played  basketball  in  such  a  way  that  the  other 
girls  in  the  school  were  afraid  to  play  against  her — 
not  really  roughly,  you  understand,  but  just  taking 
advantage  of  all  the  strength  of  body  that  the  rules 
allowed  her  to  employ — and  she  could  serve  a  tennis 
ball  with  a  speed  that  was  more  like  a  shot  from 
a  musket. 

"  Madelaine  was  rather  good  at  most  of  her  studies 
— there  was  at  first  no  really  great  trouble  there — 
but  she  was  not  fond  of  what  are  conventionally  con- 
sidered '  girlish  '  things.  She  didn't  care  for  sewing, 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  ROMANTIC      75 

she  would  never  have  learned  to  cook  if  she  lived 
to  be  a  hundred,  and  she  had  no  mind  for  sitting  in 
a  corner,  with  a  college  pillow  under  her  head,  read- 
ing fiction  of  the  marshmallow  variety. 

"  She  was  the  only  daughter  in  a  family  of  boys, 
and  I  dare  say  that  her  parents  had  got  so  used  to 
catering  to  the  tastes  of  their  three  sons  who  pre- 
ceded her  that  they  didn't  know  just  what  sort  of 
intellectual  food  most  people  considered  fitting  for  a 
girl.  In  any  event,  Madelaine  got  to  reading  her  , 
elder  brothers'  books  before  her  mother  brought  home 
any  by  Louisa  M.  Alcott,  and,  by  the  time  somebody 
gave  her  *  Little  Women,'  she  had  hopelessly  ac- 
quired the  adventure-story  habit. 

"  Mind  you,  I'm  not  saying  that  the  average  '  girls' 
book '  is  a  strengthener  of  the  moral  fiber.  It  is 
anything  but  that,  because  it  is  namby-pamby,  and 
you  can't  make  red  blood  out  of  soap  bubbles.  In- 
deed, I've  known — but  that's  another  story — a  good 
many  girls  to  get  into  trouble  just  because  they  had 
been  taught  to  believe  that  the  real  world  was  the 
honey  and  moonshine  that  they  read  about  in  the 
typical  young  ladies'  piece  of  fiction.  Nor  am  I  say- 
ing that  the  typical  '  boys'  book  '  is  any  better.  It 
is  equally  false,  in  another  direction;  and,  because 
both  are  untrue,  either  sort  is  bad  for  its  readers,  as  a 
rule,  no  matter  whether  the  books  are  read  by  the 
sex  for  which  they  are  written  or  by  the  other  sex. 
My  point  is  that  an  increasing  number  of  girls,  as 
every  school-teacher  knows,  care  more  for  the  boys' 
books,  with  their  herculean  heroes  and  preternatu- 
rally  wise  detectives,  and  that  these  books  (the  old- 
fashioned  dime  novel  bound  in  cloth  and  sold  for  a 


76       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

dollar-fifty)  are  an  evil  influence  on  their  reader,  boy 
or  girl. 

"Well,  Madelaine  liked  that  sort.  She  could 
wriggle  through  an  examination  in  the  Iliad,  she 
could  pass  in  Latin  composition,  and  she  could  escape 
*  conditions  '  in  German,  history,  and  mathematics. 
But  what  she  liked — what,  in  fact,  constituted  genu- 
ine life  for  her— was  the  '  Young  Detective  in  the 
Coal  Regions  '  series,  and  she  honestly  believed  that 
school  and  college  were  only  patches  of  dry  sand, 
carefully  walled  in  by  severe  elderly  people,  but 
actually  surrounded  by  a  world  of  hair-breadth  es- 
capes and  dashing  feats  of  strength — a  world  devoted 
entirely  to  the  commission  and  detection  of  crime. 

"  One  of  the  teachers,  recognizing  something  of 
the  possibilities  of  these  tendencies  and  knowing  how 
the  tendencies  are  spreading  among  our  young  girls, 
tried  to  take  Madelaine  to  task. 

"  '  Don't  you  know,'  said  she,  *  that  if  you  keep 
this  up  you'll  flunk  your  English  exams,  for  college?  ' 

"  Madelaine  tossed  her  golden  hair. 

"  '  I've  got  enough  to  get  me  through  without  the 
English,'  she  answered. 

"  *  But  why  not  have  the  English,  too,  when  it  is 
just  as  easy?  ' 

"  '  It's  not.' 

"  '  Don't  you  think  "  Woodstock  "  is  exciting? ' 

"  The  girl  laughed. 

"  '  Exciting?  That?  Why,  anybody  that's  really 
read  anything  knows  what's  going  to  happen  three 
pages  before  Scott  can  get  it  off  his  chest.' 

"'And  "Silas  Marner"?' 

"  '  I  should  say  not !    Nothing's  doing.    And,  be- 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  ROMANTIC      77 

sides,  when  anything  is,  the  author's  always  more 
interested  in  what  she  thinks  about  what  her  people 
do  than  she  is  in  the  people  and  what  they  do  do.' 

"  *  Yet  you  must  like  the  Shakespeare  plays  that 
are  prescribed.  A  great  deal  happens  in  them.' 

"  '  Yes,'  admitted  the  sub-freshman,  *  a  great  deal 
happens;  but,  then,  after  anything  has  happened,  the 
people  gas  so  much  about  it.  No,  thank  you;  when 
I  haven't  any  real  books  to  read,  I  just  make  up 
stories  out  of  my  own  head.' 

"  The  teacher  reported  the  case  as  hopeless,  and, 
in  June,  Madelaine  went  up  for  her  entrance  exami- 
nations. 

"  The  result  had  been  foreseen.  The  candidate 
passed  in  most  subjects,  but  failed  lamentably  in 
English. 

"  There  were  no  immediately  serious  consequences. 
Madelaine,  having  read  in  her  '  real '  books  how  such 
things  were  done  and  guessing  what  had  occurred, 
waylaid  the  college  report,  abstracted  it  from  her 
father's  mail,  steamed  the  envelope,  applied  a  little 
acid  to  those  portions  of  the  report  that  did  not  suit 
her,  replaced  them  by  more  flattering  marks,  and 
only  then  put  the  letter  where  her  parents  would  get 
it.  She  counted  on  '  making  up  the  condition  '  un- 
known to  them  in  her  freshman  year,  and  she  had 
committed  her  little  crime  not  so  much  out  of  any 
inherent  viciousness — not  even  so  much  out  of  fear 
of  paternal  rebuke — as  from  a  spirit  of  adventure  dic- 
tated by  the  impulse  for  romance  that  had  become 
her  governing  emotion. 

"  Things,  did  not,  however,  turn  out  precisely  as 
Madelaine  had  expected.  She  went  to  college,  but 


78       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

she  couldn't  at  once  make  up  that  condition,  andr 
just  as  she  had  become  passionately  fond  of  the 
college's  social  life,  her  father's  money  was  engulfed 
in  a  bitter  business  complication.  At  a  sorry  family 
council  it  was  almost  decided  that  Madelaine  must 
give  up  her  studies. 

'  '  But  I  don't  want  to  leave  college ! '  wailed 
Madelaine. 

"Her  brothers  looked  out  of  the  windows;  her 
mother,  face  in  hands,  looked  nowhere;  her  father 
gazed  at  the  ceiling  and  seemed  to  derive  thence  the 
first  faint  rays  of  a  pale  inspiration.  He  had  thought 
of  a  scholarship.  Without  a  word  to  any  one  of  the 
family,  he  went  to  the  college  to  '  see  about  it ' — and 
what  he  did  see  was  the  impossibility  of  a  scholarship 
because  of  what  his  daughter  had  concealed  from 
him. 

"  This  meant  that  the  family  council  was  speedily 
followed  by  a  family  row.  The  father  was  badly 
upset  by  his  business  worries;  his  nerves  were  on 
edge;  he  openly  regretted  that  his  daughter,  whom 
he  upbraided  for  her  deception,  was  unable  to  sup- 
port herself;  he  said  a  great  deal  that  he  did  not 
mean  and  a  few  of  those  things  which,  though  we 
always  mean  them,  we  generally  hold  unsaid. 

"  His  daughter  went  to  bed  crying.  When  she 
heard  her  mother  ascend,  on  a  mission  of  comfort, 
to  the  bedroom  door,  she  stifled  her  sobs,  and  the 
mother,  thinking  her  daughter  at  last  asleep,  forebore 
to  enter.  So  Madelaine,  lying  awake  through  half 
the  night,  planned  to  support  herself. 

"  Leaving  the  house  stealthily  the  next  morning, 
she  went  into  the  heart  of  the  city.  She  bought  a 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  ROMANTIC      79 

newspaper  and,  over  milk  and  rolls  at  a  little  lunch- 
counter,  consulted  its  minor  advertisements  until  she 
came  upon  this  one: 


"'WE  DELIVER  THE  GOODS.— Divorces  assured. 
Secrecy  guaranteed.  Confidential  investigation  our 
specialty.  Quick,  quiet,  certain.  Branches  the  world 
over.  CANNARDE  DETECTIVE  AGENCY.' 


"  The  Philadelphia  office,  when  Madelaine  got 
there,  didn't  look  like  that  of  a  concern  with  branches 
in  any  other  country.  It  was  situated  in  a  dirty 
street,  it  was  reached  by  a  dirty  flight  of  marble 
steps,  and  the  front  room,  which  the  girl  entered, 
was  an  uncarpeted  apartment  with  a  littered  table 
and  some  well-worn  handbills  on  the  walls. 

"  *  I  want  to  see  Mr.  Cannarde,'  said  the  girl. 

"  She  was  looking  at  a  short,  fat  woman,  whose 
eyes  were  bleared,  whose  cheeks  were  caked  with  last 
night's  rouge,  whose  scant  hair  did -not  hide  a  riotous, 
hempen  '  rat,'  and  who  was  partially  garbed  in  a  con- 
stantly gaping  and  very  much  soiled  kimono.  Made- 
laine had  assumed  that  this  was  a  servant. 

1  *  I'm  his  wife,'  said  the  woman.    *  He's  in  there.' 

"  She  shook  her  rat  in  the  direction  of  the  next 
room,  which,  apparently  invited,  Madelaine  now  en- 
tered, to  find  a  place  considerably  like  that  she  had 
just  left. 

"  A  fat  man,  pear-shaped,  stood  before  her,  dressed 
in  a  dark  sack  suit  and  with  shoes  that  were  notice- 
able because  of  their  remarkably  square  toes.  His 
head  was  gleamingly  bald  on  top,  where  beads  of 
sweat  shone,  and  was  fringed  with  reddish  hair.  His 
dark  eyes  were  nervous  and  shifty;  his  mustache  was 


8o      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

like  a  hairbrush;  from  the  corners  of  his  thin  lips, 
below  this,  heavy,  sinister  lines  ran  up  to  his  nose, 
and  his  skin  was  so  coarse  that  his  cheeks  seemed  as 
hard  as  the  top  of  his  head.  Even  to  Madelaine  he 
was  not  a  pleasant  object  to  look  at,  but  Madelaine 
reflected  that  few  of  her  detective  heroes  were 
that. 

"  *  Good-morning,'  said  the  man.  He  smiled,  and 
the  girl  saw  that  his  stubby  teeth  were  dirty.  '  What 
can  I  do  for  you  ? ' 

"  It  burst  from  her  in  one  long,  excited  breath: 

1  I'm  a  college  girl.  I  have  education.  You 
must  have  use  for  a  girl  with  education.  I  want  to 
be  a  detective.' 

"  He  looked  at  her,  blinking  his  shifty  eyes. 
'You — you  want  to  work  for  this  agency?' 

"  She  nodded. 

"  '  Why?  '  The  query  escaped  him.  It  all  seemed 
too  easy  to  be  quite,  as  he  would  have  said,  '  regular  ' 
— which  means  '  safe.' 

"  '  Because  I  want  to  make  my  living.  Because  I 
need  the  money.' 

"  '  Oh !  '  said  the  toad.  Now  the  ground  was  be- 
coming more  familiar.  They  all  needed,  somehow, 
the  money!  He  flourished  a  hand  on  which  glim- 
mered, as  he  meant  that  it  should,  a  diamond.  '  You 
need  it  badly?  ' 

"  '  Yes.'  After  all,  she  thought  that  this  was  the 
truth. 

"  '  But  I  can't ' — his  calculating  eyes  narrowed — • 
4  I  can't  employ  anybody  under  the  legal  age.' 

"  She  understood  from  this  that  he  wanted  her  to 
lie  about  her  age,  and  lie  she  did. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  ROMANTIC      81 

* '  I  am  just  twenty-one.' 

"  He  watched  her  and  at  what  he  considered  the 
right  time  he  said: 

"  *  Of  course  there  will  be  a  few  months  of  appren- 
ticeship, an'  nobody  gets  paid  durin'  his  apprentice- 
ship in  any  business.' 

"  Madelaine's  face  fell. 

"  *  So  I'll  get  nothing,  then?  '  she  asked. 

"  The  toad  hopped  forward.  He  tried  to  look 
benevolent.  He  put  a  kindly  hand  on  hers.  His 
trained  eye  told  him  that  he  had  erred. 

"  '  Oh,  well,'  he  answered,  '  I'll  make  that  all 
right.  Just  you  fill  out  this  paper.' 

"  He  handed  her  what  purported  to  be  an  applica- 
tion blank  (that  is  one  of  the  ways,  in  which  these 
fellows  protect  themselves),  and  he  leaned  over  her 
shoulder,  but  not  too  closely,  as  she  supplied  the 
answers.  'Do  you  drink?'  was  one  query,  and 
Madelaine  wrote,  *  No.' 

"  '  But  don't  you  ? '  leered  the  toad. 

'  '  Of  course  I  would  if  it  was  required  by  the  case 
I  was  working  on,'  said  Madelaine,  remembering  her 
pet  heroes  again. 

"  The  toad  drew  a  chair  near  her  and  looked  at 
her  hard.  Once  more  he  felt  that  this  was  all  *  too 
easy.' 

"  *  You  really  mean  that  you're  brave  enough  to 
do  this  sort  of  work?  '  he  asked,  still  carefully  word- 
ing his  questions  so  as  to  spur  her  to  the  replies  he 
wanted. 

1 '  Brave  enough?    Of  course  I  am! ' 

"  *  But  you'd  have  to  put  yourself,  perhaps,  in 
situations  that'd  look  compromisin'.' 


82       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  She  didn't  understand  him,  but,  '  I'm  not  afraid,' 
she  said. 

"  The  toad  breathed  heavily.  He  always  breathed 
heavily. 

'  You  an'  me,'  he  said,  *  might  be  watchin'  a 
runaway  husband  an'  might  have  to  make  out  we  was 
husband  an'  wife.' 

u  Still  she  did  not  understand. 

1  *  I'm  not  afraid,'  said  Madelaine. 

"  '  Very  well.'  The  toad  pocketed  the  applica- 
tion. '  I'll  write  or  'phone  just  as  soon  as  I 
need  you;  I'll  call  myself  "Jack."  You'll  remem- 
ber?" 

"  She  assured  him  that  she  would.  She  went  home, 
still  resentful  against  her  family,  still  silent.  The 
next  evening  he  called  her  by  the  telephone. 

"  '  Meet  me  in  the  ladies'  waitin'-room  at  Broad 
Street  Station,'  he  said.  *  I've  got  just  the  case  for 
you.' 

"  She  met  him.  He  told  her  that  their  work  had 
to  do  with  a  divorce  and  that  he  and  she  must  go  to 
a  house  uptown — she  still  remembers  that  house — 
and  must  there  observe  a  husband,  who  would  have 
the  next  room.  However,  there  appeared  to  be  no 
great  hurry,  because  he  took  her  first  to  a  Filbert 
Street  saloon  and  there  bought  her  what  he  assured 
her  was  only  claret  lemonade. 

"  Over  this  drink  the  toad  grew  sentimental.  He 
told  Madelaine  that  his  wife  was  unfaithful,  that 
Mrs.  Cannarde  had,  in  fact,  a  score  of  casual  lovers, 
and  that  if  he  could  find  a  girl  to  care  for  him,  he 
would  run  away  with  her.  But  Madelaine  was  not 
overly  interested  in  Mrs.  Cannarde's  affairs  of  the 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  ROMANTIC      83 

heart,  and  so  the  toad  conducted  her  to  the  house 
where  they  were  to  watch. 

'  '  How  is  it,'  whispered  Madelaine,  when  they 
entered  the  darkened  hall,  '  that  the  maid  lets  you  go 
upstairs  without  saying  anything?  ' 

"  '  Oh,'  answered  the  toad,  *  she  knows  me  well. 
Just  be  careful  not  to  make  any  noise.' 

"  They  went  upstairs,  and,  as  they  climbed,  all  of 
Madelaine's  courage  left  her.  In  a  girl  so  young, 
physical  strength  does  not  imply  moral  fortitude,  and 
this  child's  heart  fluttered  until  she  nearly  fell.  When 
the  toad  showed  her  into  a  room  and  locked  the 
door,  though  her  every  instinct  now  tardily  told  her 
the  truth,  she  was  fraid  to  cry  out,  afraid  to  protest, 
afraid  for  her  life." 


The  woman  that  was  telling  me  this  story,  the 
teacher  in  the  Indiana  school,  stopped  her  narrative. 

Now,  after  investigation,  I  know  that  the  story 
is  a  common  one,  that  the  pseudo  private  detective 
is  only  one  of  the  tentacles  of  the  great  devil-fish 
that  preys  upon  our  daughters.  But  then  it  was  new 
to  me  and  I  gasped. 

"How  did  it  end?"  I  demanded. 

"  Generally,"  said  my  informant,  "  the  victim  is 
afraid  to  go  home  after  what  has  happened  and  so 
is  sold  at  once  into  slavery.  Sometimes  she  goes 
home,  but  is  recalled  by  threats  of  exposure." 

"But  in  this  case?"  I  persisted. 

"  In  this  case  the  girl  went  home  and  made  an 
affidavit  against  the  toad.  If  she  ever  has  reason  to 
believe  that  the  use  of  that  affidavit  will  serve  a  good 


84       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

end,  she  will  use  it,  regardless  of  all  consequences  to 
herself.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  where  others  are  lost, 
she  escaped  the  ultimate  slavery,  for  I  suppose  she 
must  have  been,  after  all,  a  rather  remarkable  girl." 

"  She  must,  indeed,"  I  agreed.  "  Think  of  her 
coming  to  you  and  telling  you  this." 

"  Oh,  she  didn't  do  that,"  answered  the  historian. 

"  But,"  said  I,  "  how,  then,  did  you  learn  it?  " 

"  Simply  enough — I  was  the  girl." 


VIII 
THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  WEAK 

I  MEANT  to  give  this  story  another  sort  of 
title.  I  meant  to  call  it  "  The  Girl  That  Loved." 
But  my  Severest  Critic  objected. 

"  That  won't  do  at  all,"  said  my  Severest  Critic. 

"Why  not?"  I  inquired. 

"  Because,"  said  the  Critic,  "  this  girl  didn't  really 
love." 

"  But  girls,  for  love,  have  done  what  she  did." 

"  They  have;  but  this  girl  wasn't  in  love,  and  her 
case  is  far  more  usual  than  the  cases  of  girls  that 
behave  similarly  because  of  love." 

"  Then,"  said  I,  "  if  it  wasn't  love  with  Hallie, 
what  was  it?  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  she  was 
vicious?  " 

"  I  do  not." 

"Very  well;  what  do  you  say?" 

"  Get  her  to  give  you  her  autobiography  as  she 
gave  it  to  me,"  replied  my  Critic.  "  After  that,  come 
back  and  write  the  story  —  and  after  you  have  written 
the  story,  I'll  tell  you." 

I  have  obeyed.  I  have  seen  Hallie  and,  quite  as 
she  gave  it  to  me,  I  have  written  the  story 


Hallie  lived  in  a  small  tewnJn—  Yermont     It  was 
not,  in  the  real  sense  of  the  term,  a  manufacturing 

85 


86       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

town,  though  there  were  a  couple  of  factories  in  it, 
in  one  of  which,  ranking  as  a  little  better  than  the 
"  hands,"  but  far,  far  below  any  officer  of  the  com- 
pany, Hallie's  father  was  employed.  It  was  a  town, 
in  fact,  like  many  that  you  must  be  acquainted  with. 
Nearly  everybody  in  it  had  lived  there  for  a  long  time. 
The  younger  people  were  all  natives.  Each  family 
knew — though,  of  course,  the  degrees  of  intimacy 
varied — every  other  family;  and  though  there  had 
now  and  then  been  little  breaths  of  scandal  here  and 
there,  these  breaths  were  unfailingly  stifled  at  their 
beginning,  by  one  conventional  method  or  another. 
The  very  poorest  people  prided  themselves  upon  their 
respectability,  upon  their  family's  respectability,  upon 
the  respectability  of  their  town. 

In  this  particular,  as,  indeed,  in  most  others,  Hal- 
lie's  parents  were  typical.  Her  father  worked  hard 
and  earned  little,  but  he  was  well  thought  of  by  the 
persons  of  his  own  class  and  well  spoken  of  by  his 
employers.  The  former  regarded  him  as  a  splendid 
example  of  their  sort;  the  latter  always  referred  to 
him  as  "  a  thoroughly  honest  and  conscientious  em- 
ployee," and  he  himself  wanted  nothing  better  than  to 
continue  to  deserve  such  praise.  Hallie's  mother  was 
the  feminine  counterpart  of  Hallie's  father.  She 
managed  the  little  house  and  counted  it  as  her  high- 
est honor  that  her  neighbors  should  wonder  how  she 
could  do  so  well  on  so  little.  She  was  a  good  cook 
and  she  kept  the  children — there  was  one  other,  a 
girl  of  six — neat  and  clean.  Moreover,  she  "  took 
in  "  the  "  plain  washing,"  rather  as  a  favor,  from  the 
home  of  one  of  the  local  mill-owners.  Both  husband 
and  wife  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in  the  town. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  WEAK        87 

So  had  their  parents.  And  their  grandparents.  In 
the  phrase  of  the  street,  "  they  belonged." 

Hallie  went  to  the  town  grammar  school  and  was 
about  to  pass  into  the  high  school.  All  of  her  friends 
went  there — boys  and  girls  together — and  Hallie 
liked  the  boys  as  much  as  the  other  girls  liked  them. 
Sometimes  they  would  slip  her,  these  boys,  little  notes 
during  school  hours,  rather  because  they  loved  the 
peril  involved  in  this  medium  of  communication  for- 
bidden by  the  academic  authorities  than  that  they 
had  any  burning  messages  to  convey.  The  messages, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  sometimes  were  mere  inquiries 
concerning  the  answer  to  a  sum,  sometimes  youthfully 
rough-shod  comments  upon  the  teacher;  and  when 
they  were  at  all  affectionate,  the  affection  was  either 
shamefacedly  expressed  or  more  frequently  hidden 
under  a  thin  pretense  of  mere  chaffing.  After  school, 
one  or  the  other  boys  would  often  wait  for  Hallie 
around  a  corner,  where  his  fellows  could  not  see  him 
and  jeer  at  him,  and  protesting  that  the  encounter 
was  a  chance  one,  walk  out  of  his  own  way  with  her 
and  as  close  to  Hallie's  home  as  he  might  go  without 
attracting  the  attention  of  Hallie's  mother  and  the 
smile  that,  from  Hallie's  mother,  he  would  have  re- 
ceived as  silent  ridicule. 

All  of  which,  as  do  most  girls,  Hallie  enjoyed. 

In  the  spring  and  during  the  summer  the  young 
people  went  for  picnics  into  the  woods  that  sur- 
rounded the  town.  The  girls  persuaded  their  mothers 
to  assist  them  in  preparing  little  luncheons  for  these 
picnics,  packing  the  food  in  baskets,  and  the  boys 
carried  the  baskets.  Then  they  walked,  the  pic- 
nickers, to  the  woods  and  gathered  flowers  and  ate 


88       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

luncheon  and  at  last  strolled  homeward  in  the  pine- 
scented  twilight.  They  were  unchaperoned;  their 
elders  would  have  considered  the  presence  of  a 
chaperon  as  an  inherent  reflection  upon  their  chil- 
dren's character — as  un-American — and  the  young 
people  would  have  paid  no  attention  to  a  chaperon 
had  one  been  there. 

If  you  have  been  brought  up  in  a  large  city  you 
may  not  understand  the  parental  attitude  toward  this 
particular  matter;  but  if  you  have  been  brought  up 
in  a  large  city,  you  have,  whether  you  recognized  it 
or  not,  encountered  a  parental  attitude  that,  allowing 
for  the  unessential  differences  of  city  life,  is  sub- 
stantially the  same.  You  have  encountered  parents 
who  permit  their  children  to  go  unchaperoned  to 
"  amusement  parks,"  and  if  you  do  not  know  that 
amusement  parks  furnish  situations  which,  occurring 
quickly,  abolish  the  necessity  for  the  first  slow  steps 
toward  contact,  it  might  be  worth  your  while  to  find 
out.  If,  however,  you  passed  your  youth  in  a  small 
town,  you  will  have  seen  just  what  I  have  so  far  de- 
scribed of  Hallie's  town,  and  you  will  at  least  have 
heard  of  what  I  am  about  to  tell  you  as  happening 
to  Hallie. 

The  young  people  of  Hallie's  town  had  always  en- 
joyed themselves  very  much  as  Hallie  and  her  friends 
had  been  enjoying  themselves.  Nobody  there  would 
have  dreamed  of  questioning  the  propriety  of  such 
things.  There  is  nothing  wrong  in  young  affection; 
there  is  nothing  wrong  in  picnics.  Hallie's  parents 
had  lived  the  same  sort  of  life  when  they  were  in  their 
youth.  If,  once  in  a  long  time,  harm  had  befallen 
somebody — well,  that  was  the  fault  of  the  individual 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  WEAK        89 

somebody;  their  child  was  of  different  stuff.  Besides, 
their  later  lives  had  been  so  busy  that  they  had  for- 
gotten much. 

Yet  harm  did  befall  Hallie. 

There  was  a  picnic. 

Somehow,  as  the  boys  and  girls  were  strolling 
through  the  woods,  looking  for  flowers  that  would 
not  appear  for  at  least  a  month,  Hallie  and  her  boy 
companion  were  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  party. 

"  I'm  sure  there  are  some  flowers  over  here  in  a 
little  valley  that  I  know  about,"  said  the  boy. 
"  We'll  go  there  and  get  some,  and  then  we'll  come 
back  with  a  lot,  and  the  other  people  won't  have 
any." 

He  was  one  of  the  older  boys,  this  George  Stevens. 
He  was  in  the  high  school  and  about  to  graduate  and 
go  to  work  as  a  clerk — not  as  a  mere  laborer — in  the 
factory.  He  was  nearly  nineteen  and  his  attention 
was  flattering.  There  were  girls  among  her  friends 
that  would  envy  Hallie. 

One  of  these  girls  saw  the  pair  as  they  made  their 
way  in  the  general  direction  that  George  had  indi- 
cated. She,  too,  was  strolling  alone  with  a  boy — a 
boy  in  the  class  below  Stevens. 

"  Hello !  "  she  cried,  laughing. 

"Hello!"  said  Hallie. 

"Where  you  going?" 

"  Oh— for  a  walk." 

The  girl  giggled. 

"We're  all  to  meet  at  the  big  oak  at  half-past 
four,"  said  her  companion. 

"  All  right,"  answered  George.    "  We'll  be  there." 

But  at  half-past  four  o'clock  they  were  not  there. 


90       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

They  were  not  there  until  long  after  five,  and  then 
some  of  the  party  had  grown  tired  of  waiting  and 
started  home.  As  Hallie  and  George  came  up, 
empty-handed,  from  one  direction,  there  approached 
from  the  opposite  the  girl  and  boy  that  had  called 
to  George  and  Hallie  when  they  were  starting 
out. 

"  You're  late,  too,"  remarked  the  girl. 

"  Are  we?  "  stammered  Hallie. 

"  Yes,"  George  interjected.  "  We  lost  our  way. 
What  happened  to  you?  " 

The  other  boy  grinned. 

"  So  did  we,"  he  answered. 

The  incident  passed  as  a  joke.  The  other  pic- 
nickers assumed  that  the  two  couples  had  been 
"  spooning,"  as  they  called  it.  But  Hallie,  though 
her  vocabulary  was  limited,  did  not  believe  that  this 
was  the  word  for  the  actions  of  the  other  pair,  and 
the  other  pair  repaid,  mentally,  in  kind.  Each,  as  it 
happened,  did  the  other  an  injustice. 

An  injustice  that  time ;  but  other  times — other  pic- 
nics, walks  after  school,  walks  along  the  shadowy 
streets  of  the  town  by  twilight  and  into  the  always 
near  and  always  inviting  countryside — followed.  The 
inevitable — or  what  in  the  circumstances  was  in- 
evitable— occurred,  and  there  was  secret  fear  and 
shame  and  repentance,  all  gradually  subsiding  before 
the  slowly  dawning  realization  of  no  observable  evil 
consequences.  And  then  Hallie  took  other  walks,  not 
always  with  George,  though  with  George  oftener 
than  with  any  other  lad. 

The  observable  evil  consequences  came,  however, 
at  last,  as,  sooner  or  later,  they  seem  generally  sure 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  WEAK        91 

to  come.  Hallie  began  by  hotly  denying  her  terrors. 
Then  she  whispered  them  to  George,  and  George, 
turning  pale,  supported  her  denial.  But  finally  she 
convinced  herself  that  denial  was  useless,  because  the 
terror  was  a  fact. 

Again  she  sought  George,  and  when  she  had  con- 
vinced him,  he  looked  at  her  wide  eyes,  at  the  tears 
that  streamed  down  her  cheeks,  at  the  twisted  mouth 
and  contorted  face,  at  all  the  tokens  of  grief  that 
left  her  so  unlovely  to  his  gaze. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  trembling  a  little,  "  I  don't  see 
what  we're  to  do." 

She  drew  back  from  him  as  from  a  fresh  fear. 

"  You're  goin' — aren't  you  goin'  to  get  a  job?  " 

"  Not  if  this  came  out,  I  wouldn't  get  it;  and 
if  I  did,  it's  not  enough  for  two." 

"  But,  George  " — she  had,  after  all,  to  face  this 
new  fear,  and  so  she  extended  her  arms  to  him — 
"  George,  I  won't  mind  that.  I  won't  mind  how  little 
it  is." 

Stevens's  face  flushed. 

"  You  won't  mind !  "  he  echoed.  "  I  like  that !  I 
guess  you  wouldn't  mind!  But  I  tell  you  I  would. 
Everybody'd  know !  " 

"  They'll  know,  anyhow " 

"  Not  about  me  they  won't.  And  I'm  not  so  sure 
myself." 

"Not  sure?" 

"No,  I  am  not.  There  were  other  fellows;  you 
needn't  pretend  there  weren't." 

"  I  don't  pretend.  I  haven't  lied.  I  wouldn't  lie 
to  you.  But  it  was  you  that  was  first,  and  it  was 
you " 


92       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  And  you  think  I'd  want  to  marry  a  girl  that 
had  been  so  free?  You  think  I'd  want  to  marry  her 
even  if  I'd  been  the  only  one?  I  wouldn't  marry  a 
bad  woman !  " 

They  were  in  a  country  lane.  It  was  afternoon  and 
the  sun  was  hot.  Hallie  put  her  hand  to  her  head 
and  swayed  a  little.  She  leaned  against  a  tree. 

"  Come  on !  "  commanded  George.  "  Don't  do 
that!  Somebody  might  come  along,  and  then  what 
would  they  think?  " 

Always  ready  to  his  will,  she  staggered  forward 
beside  him,  her  frightened  eyes  on  his  tense  face, 
his  own  angry  eyes  on  the  dusty  road  directly  ahead. 

"  It  don't  matter  what  they  think,"  she  dully  mut- 
tered. "  They're  soon  sure  to  know." 

"  Not  about  me,"  said  George  again.  His  mind 
revolted.  He  had  not  intended  this  and  he  did  not 
understand  why  he  should  suffer  for  what  he  had  not 
meant  to  do.  "  Know  about  it?  "  he  went  on.  "  I 
tell  you,  I  don't  know  about  it  myself." 

She  clutched  his  arm,  her  dry  lips  parted.  He 
tried  to  draw  away,  but  her  convulsive  fingers  held 
him  fast. 

"  You  think "  she  began. 

But  it  is  easy  to  believe  what  we  want  to  believe, 
and  George  had  now  convinced  himself. 

"  It  wasn't  me,"  he  said. 

"  George  " — she  almost  shouted  it — "  I  swear 
to  you " 

"  Shut  up,  will  you  ?  Do  you  want  to  call  the 
farmers?  I  tell  you  it  was  somebody  else.  You 
can't  work  any  of  these  tricks  on  me.  I  know  what's 
what.  It  wasn't  me." 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  WEAK        93 

She  could  not  move  him.  She  tried  until  her 
nerves  and  his  patience  were  both  exhausted,  but  she 
could  not  change  him  from  the  position  that  he  had 
assumed.  She  went  home,  slunk  into  the  house  like 
a  thief,  pretended  to  eat  her  supper  while  she  was 
sure  that  suspicion  must  be  dawning  in  her  parents' 
eyes,  went  early  to  bed  and  lay  all  night  awake,  as 
she  had  lain  for  so  many  nights  before. 

In  the  morning,  but  only  because  she  could  stand 
it  no  longer,  she  told  her  mother.  Violent  sobs  tore 
the  elder  woman's  throat — ejaculations  of  anger,  calls 
upon  God  to  explain  this  unmerited  visitation,  and  at 
last  that  fatal  phrase: 

"  I  must  tell  your  father." 

On  her  knees,  weeping  in  her  mother's  lap,  clasp- 
ing her  mother's  waist,  Hallie  pleaded  against  this; 
yet  all  the  while  she  knew  that  it  must  be  done,  and 
done  that  evening  it  was. 

The  father  went  through  all  that  his  wife  had  gone 
through — and  more.  He  vowed  that  he  would  shoot 
George,  that  he  would  shoot  Hallie,  that  he  would 
shoot  himself.  But  in  the  end  his  real  self  prevailed. 
He  blamed  Hallie  heavily — she  had  brought  shame 
to  her  parents,  shame  to  a  decent  family  that  had 
never  known  shame  before — but  the  paramount  thing 
was  not  the  wrong  that  had  been  done.  The  para- 
mount thing  was  to  cover  the  wrong  and  hide  it;  the 
paramount  thing  was  to  evade  public  disgrace.  He 
would  go  to  George's  father. 

The  elder  Stevens  had,  however,  been  forewarned 
by  his  son.  He  hesitated  to  tell  Hallie's  father,  in 
such  manifest  trouble,  of  George's  counter-charges; 
but  he  sent  for  George,  and  George,  driven  to  the 


94       THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

wall,  fought  the  parent  with  the  same  weapon  that 
he  had  used  against  the  daughter. 

The  girl's  father  nearly  struck  the  lad,  but  he  be- 
thought himself  that  violence  might  lead  to  publicity, 
and  refrained.  In  the  end  he  returned  to  his  house, 
convinced  that  a  marriage  was  impossible,  and  passed 
hours  in  bringing  home  to  Hallie  a  sense  of  the  dis- 
grace that  she  had  brought  upon  her  family. 

Nor  was  the  town  less  merciful.  Who  first  pub- 
lished the  scandal  is  beyond  positive  telling.  Cer- 
tainly Hallie's  parents  wanted  to  delay  the  evil  as 
long  as  might  be.  Yet  the  girl's  mother  confided  to 
a  friend  that  she  was  in  the  depths  of  a  great  sorrow ; 
the  mother  of  the  boy,  informed  by  her  cautious 
husband  of  but  half  the  truth,  whispered  to  a  con- 
fidante that  Hallie  had  made  unbelievable  charges; 
the  friend  and  the  confidante  told  others;  the  others 
remembered  little  things  that  they  had  seen,  and  thus 
at  last  the  town  learned  the  truth,  resented  the  ob- 
loquy that  Hallie  had  put  upon  its  respectable  reputa- 
tion and  prepared  to  punish  the  criminal. 

Wherever  the  girl  went,  her  fault  followed.  All 
saw  her  and  she  knew  it;  all  that  saw  her  were 
aware  of  what  she  had  done,  and,  as  they  saw  her, 
remembered  it  and  resented  it — and  this  she  also 
knew.  Her  shame  assumed  a  thousand  shapes — a 
different  shape  for  each  individual  that  considered 
her  and  it.  Now  somebody  shook  a  solemn  head. 
Again  somebody  tried  to  hide — or  pretended  to  try 
to  hide — a  spiteful  smile.  This  girl  pointed;  that 
man  leered.  There  were  some  that  sighed;  there 
were  others  that  gasped.  Many  gaped  and  craned 
their  necks,  whispering;  a  few  frankly  tittered.  Out 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  WEAK        95 

of  his  own  character  each  observer  made  her  a  new 
object  of  reproach,  and  her  sorrow-quickened  senses 
missed  not  one. 

Four  of  her  friends,  at  four  different  times,  met 
her  salutation  on  the  street  with  faces  that  were 
blanker  than  they  would  have  been  at  the  impertinent 
salutation  of  a  stranger,  until,  cut  right  and  left, 
Hallie  would  speak  to  nobody.  Little  children, 
vaguely  instructed  by  their  parents,  ran  away  from 
her  approach,  until  she  was  afraid  to  show  herself 
by  day  and  would  go  out  only  in  the  darkness.  And 
at  last,  in  the  darkness,  one  of  the  town  idlers 
accosted  her  and  said  something  that,  thereafter, 
kept  her  a  prisoner  within  the  walls  of  her  own 
home. 

Her  own  home !  Hallie's  mother  had  all  the  will 
in  the  world  to  help  her,  but  how  to  help  she  did  not 
know.  She  had  a  magnificent  tenderness,  but  she  had 
a  still  greater  sense  of  the  disgrace  that  was  upon 
them  all.  Day  long  she  wept  over  Hallie,  but  Hallie 
knew — even  if  the  mother  did  not  know  it — that  more 
than  half  of  the  tears  contained  a  reproach,  however 
gentle,  because  more  than  half  of  them  were  shed 
over  that  honor  of  the  family  which  Hallie  had 
thrown  away. 

Her  father  did  also  what  he  could ;  but  he,  too,  could 
do  little.  He  had  talked  for  a  while  of  sending  her 
to  Boston  before  the  town  could  learn  the  truth;  but 
the  town  had  superseded  him,  and  he  now  came  home 
with  the  head  bowed  which  had  once  been  so  erect 
and  with  a  gloom  that  spoke  always  of  the  memory 
of  a  respectability  that  Hallie  had  filched  from  him. 

And  so  at  last  the  girl  took  matters  into  her  own 


96      THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

hands.  Nearly  mad  from  her  punishment,  she  sought 
to  escape  its  continuance. 

"  I  can't  stand  it !  "  she  moaned,  between  sobs,  to 
the  midnight  darkness  of  her  room.  "  I  can't  stand 
it!" 

On  the  night  of  a  day  when  her  little  sister  ran 
home  crying  because  her  playmates  had  been  forbid- 
den to  consort  with  a  child  whose  family  included  a 
wicked  woman,  Hallie  stole  away.  She  had  a  little 
money  in  a  toy  savings  box,  and  this  she  used  to  get 
her  to  New  York.  There  she  kept  herself  alive  by 
begging  on  the  street  until  she  went  to  the  hospital. 
She  did  not  know  that  in  New  York  there  were  in- 
stitutions to  care  for  the  sort  of  girl  that  a  Vermont 
town  could  not  abide,  and  so,  as  she  was  too  unskilled 
to  work  and  too  afraid  of  death  to  starve,  she  soon 
put  her  baby  in  an  asylum  and  herself  upon  the  street. 

She  is  still  there. 

******* 

That  is  Hallie's  story  as  Hallie  gave  it  me.  I 
wrote  it  as  my  Severest  Critic  commanded,  and  my 
Severest  Critic  has  read  it  through. 

"Well?"  said  I. 

"Well?"  said  the  Crititc. 

"  You  were  right,"  I  admitted.  "  Once  I  got  the 
facts  at  first  hand,  I  found  that,  in  Hallie's  case,  it 
wasn't  a  question  of  love.  She  was  too  young." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Critic,  "  she  was  too  young.  Hal- 
lie  was  one  of  the  girls  that  are  weak.  She  made  a 
mistake  and  she  couldn't  stand  its  consequences." 

"  I'm  not  sure,"  I  submitted,  "  that  the  lesser  char- 
acters in  Hallie's  story  were  altogether  blameless." 

"  They  certainly  were  not  blameless,"  replied  the 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  WEAK        97 

Critic.  "  What  Hallie  couldn't  stand  was  the  dis- 
grace; she  couldn't  stand  the  scorn  of  her  friends,  the 
jeers  of  the  whole  town;  she  couldn't  stand  the 
knowledge  that,  much  as  ?er  parents  regretted  what 
she  had  done,  they  regretted  still  more  its  mere  dis- 
covery." 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WENT  TO  SEE 

RACIAL  generalizations  are  always  dangerous. 
Concerning  the  Chinaman,  they  are  almost 
always  misleading.  The  only  safe  thing  to 
say  of  him  is  that  he  is  not  widely  understood,  that 
things  not  understood  have  an  essential  lure,  and  that 
the  lure  of  things  not  understood  is  a  hazard  of  peril. 
Otherwise,  Yellow  and  White  are  one. 
/  Save  for  his  unenlightenment,  which  is  the  fault 
of  his  governmental  traditions,  there  is,  indeed,  noth- 
ing wrong  with  the  Chinaman — as  a  Chinaman. 
When  his  traditions  do  not  interfere,  he  is  personally 
as  polite  as  a  French  shopkeeper  and  economically 
as  honest  as  a  French  peasant.  This  Young  China  is 
certain  some  day  to  improve;  the  rest  she  is  equally 
certain  some  day  materially  to  alter.  But  in  the  mean- 
time the  traditions  remain,  and  though  in  Pekin  they 
are  as  frank  as  Broadway  or  Pacific  Avenue,  in  the 
yellow  strips  of  our  American  cities  they  are  woven 
through  the  crooked,  cluttered  streets  like  a  web  that 
is  well-nigh  invisible,  but  wholly  tenacious.  It  is  not 
good  for  the  Occidental  to  become  entangled  therein. 
Yet  this  last  it  is  hard  for  the  Occident  to  learn. 
Except  the  West,  nothing  tempts  the  West  quite  so 
subtly  and  strongly  as  the  East  or  any  manifestation 
of  the  East.  It  calls  us.  The  shuffle  of  the  heelless 
shoes,  the  clatter  of  the  beaded  curtains,  the  pungent 
98 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WENT  TO  SEE       99 

scent  of  the  joss-sticks — they  all  call  us.  They  are 
the  Celestial  Dragon,  gaping  eternally  for  the  sun. 
We  are  young,  we  are  obvious,  we  are  hurried ;  how, 
indeed,  can  it  be  that  we  should  long  resist  what  is 
aged,  mysterious,  serene? 

This,  although  she  did  not  so  concretely  formulate 
it,  was  the  question  that,  in  the  end,  presented  itself 
to  Muriel. 

Muriel  was  of  the  West,  Western.  She  was  of  what 
San  Francisco  calls  "  an  old  San  Francisco  family." 
This  is  to  say  that  her  grandfather  had  been  born  and 
raised  in  Akron,  O.,  and  had  followed  the  Argonauts 
to  the  coast  in  1850,  there  to  arrive  in  time  to  filch 
his  share — or  somebody's  share — of  the  Golden 
Fleece.  As  he  had  then  straightway  married  the 
newly-arrived  sister  of  another  pioneer  (who  came 
from  Clyde,  N.  Y.) ,  and  as  the  pair  had  one  son,  who 
was  a  Californian  by  birth,  the  stock  was  clearly  as 
San  Franciscan  as  it  was  old. 

In  America,  however,  even  the  natural  forces  work 
more  speedily  than  they  work  in  alien  climes,  and  the 
law  of  compensation  does  not  long  delay.  As  a  rule, 
the  generation  that  acquires  begets  a  generation  that 
disburses.  Muriel's  old  San  Francisco  family  was  no 
exception. 

Of  course  Muriel's  grandfather  had  really  cornered 
a  great  deal  of  money — so  much  that  one  man  must 
have  some  difficulty  in  getting  rid  of  it  all.  Still  Mu- 
riel's "  poppa  "  did  his  best.  The  ability  to  devote 
one's  life  to  a  single  ideal  was  in  his  blood,  and,  By  as- 
siduously cultivating  that  ability,  this  son  of  a  Jason 
accomplished  wonders.  He  married  at  the  age  of 
forty,  because  he  felt  that  he  had  by  that  time  earned 


ioo     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

a  little  diversion;  and  as  his  wife  proved  a  true  help- 
meet, the  pair  so  far  succeeded  in  reducing  the  weight 
of  the  family  bank-account  that  when  Muriel  was 
born  both  parents  were  thoroughly  discontented  with 
life  and  one  was  forced  to  earn  their  living  by  pre- 
tending to  work  in  a  bank. 

But  Muriel  also  had  her  inheritance.  If  she  was 
born  into  a  household  that  let  no  day  pass  without 
regretting  the  better  days  which  had  passed  so  long 
before  it — and  without  any  effort  to  conjure  those 
days  into  a  new  life — she  was  just  as  surely  born  (or 
so  the  discredited  believers  in  heredity  would  assure 
us)  into  a  family  that  was  by  nature  inquisitive.  She 
felt,  very  early,  that  she  had  to  be  a  pioneer.  Her 
childhood  was  fed  on  stories  of  the  grandfather  that 
had  listened  to  the  ancient  call  and  had  obeyed  it: 

Something  hidden,  go  and  find  it,  go  and  look  behind  the  Ranges, 
Something  lost  behind  the  Ranges,  lost  and  waiting  for  you.  Go! 

It  was,  since  his  money  had  disappeared,  only  the 
pioneer  instincts  of  this  grandparent  that  made  her 
any  better  than  the  other  girls  in  school — the  girls 
whose  fathers  had  come  to  San  Francisco  but  a  score 
of  years  ago  and  whose  fathers'  fathers  were  born 
across  the  Atlantic.  If  she  were  to  retain  her  supe- 
riority, she  must  cease  to  follow:  she  must  explore. 
In  brief,  then,  Muriel  had  an  inquiring  mind  and 
an  adventurous  heart — a  combination  large  with  peril. 
When  she  studied  physics,  she  was  not  content  with 
being  told  the  result  of  experiments;  she  was  not 
even  content  with  watching  the  underpaid  instructor 
perform  those  experiments.  She  insisted  upon  per- 
forming the  experiments  herself. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WENT  TO  SEE      101 

When  she  was  only  fifteen  one  of  her  young  com- 
panions told  her  that  another  friend  had  said  that  a 
certain  Japanese  beggar  who  frequented  the  ware- 
house district  would,  for  "  two  bits,"  bite  his  hand  till 
it  bled.  Muriel  immediately  started  downtown. 

"  Where  are  you  going?  "  asked  her  companion. 

"  I'm  going  to  see  if  it's  true,"  said  Muriel. 

And  go — and  see — she  did. 

Matters  were  bad  enough  with  Muriel's  family 
before  the  big  'quake,  but  after  it  there  came  a  long 
period  when  they  were  almost  desperate.  The  shock 
wrecked  the  family  house,  which  was  not  "  on  the 
hill "  where  the  family  house  had  once  been,  and  the 
fire  came  so  close  to  ruining  the  bank  that,  in  the  first 
terrible  days  when  the  sick  city  fought  its  way  back 
to  rehabilitation  as  an  injured  man  fights  his  way 
back  to  health,  Muriel's  father  lost  his  job  and  could 
no  longer  even  play  at  work.  The  result  was  a  domes- 
tic atmosphere  so  highly  surcharged  with  storm  that 
the  daughter  passed  just  as  much  of  her  time  as  she 
could  pass  in  any  other  atmosphere  accessible. 

Always  she  continued  "  to  go  to  see."  Long  be' 
fore  she  had  been  told  that  whisky  produced  intoxi- 
cation. In  order  to  prove  this,  she  had  taken  three 
drinks  from  the  dining-room  decanter  and  retired  to 
bed,  whereafter,  the  theory  being  thus  demonstrated 
to  her  entire  personal  satisfaction,  money  would  not 
have  hired  her  to  touch  whisky  again.  She  could  still 
remember  the  day  when  she  had  "  jumped  five  hun- 
dred "  with  her  "  skipping-rope,"  merely  to  discover 
whether  that  exercise  would,  as  her  school  friends  as- 
sured her,  result  in  either  exhaustion  or  a  fainting 
fit.  She  had  smoked  one  of  her  father's  cheap  cigars 


102     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  to  see  what  tobacco  was  like,"  and  she  had  leaped 
from  the  second-story  window  in  an  effort  to  procure 
the  sensation  obtained  by  the  blond-haired  circus- 
lady  that  "  looped  the  loop." 

None  of  these  things  was  of  itself  evil.  None  was 
undertaken  with  the  purpose  of  offending  other  people 
or  of  harming  herself.  None  resulted  in  any  bad 
habit.  But  all  confirmed  the  habit  of  "  going  to  see." 

You  will,  however,  remark  one  peculiarity:  Mu- 
riel's explorations  had  thus  far  missed  Chinatown; 
she  had  as  yet  failed  to  encounter  the  lure  of  the 
Orient,  had  never  yet  seen  the  arched  Dragon  gaping 
for  the  sun.  But  that  is  easy  of  explanation,  and, 
indeed,  if  you  know  San  Francisco,  you  will  have 
supplied  the  explanation  for  yourself. 
^  In  the  days  before  the  big  'quake,  Chinatown  in 
San  Francisco  was  "  one  of  those  things  better  left 
undiscusscd."  In  other  words,  it  was  supposed  to  be 
a  spot  set  aside,  by  mutual  male  consent,  for  that 
contradiction  in  terms,  "  a  necessary  evil."  The  men 
all  knew  about  it  specifically,  the  boys  all  pretended 
to  know  about  it  theoretically,  and  the  married  women 
were  all,  though  very  vaguely,  aware  of  its  existence. 
Yet  to  one's  daughter — well,  one  might  about  as  well 
stop  living  on  Pacific  Avenue  and  begin  talking  about 
Pacific  Street. 

After  the  'quake  things  changed.  The  splendid 
city  climbed  by  its  own  effort  from  its  own  ashes  and 
in  the  genuine  glory  of  that  accomplishment  con- 
vinced itself  that,  where  much  was  new  and  all  was 
good,  nothing  that  was  old  and  evil  had  survived. 
San  Francisco  had  been  burned;  Chinatown  had  been 
burned  to  cinder.  The  city  had  risen  from  the  dead 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WENT  TO  SEE      103 

because  it  was  vital,  but,  because  it  was  diseased,  the 
town  must  have  perished.  One  could,  therefore, 
now  speak  more  freely  of  the  latter,  and  Muriel 
chanced  to  overhear  her  father  talking  of  it  to  her 
mother. 

"  At  any  rate,"  said  the  father,  with  that  righteous 
calm  wherewith  the  one  just  man  discourses  of  the 
unjust  that  have  perished  for  their  sins,  "  if  the  fire 
has  done  nothing  else,  it  has  helped  San  Francisco 
by  destroying  Chinatown." 

"  And,"  inquired  his  wife,  "  was  Chinatown  really 
such  an  evil?  " 

"  It  was  a  plague  spot — though,  of  course,  it's 
impossible  for  you  to  understand  just  how  and  why. 
Parts  of  it  weren't  safe  for  a  white  man  without  a 
guide — not  to  mention  a  white  woman." 

"  But  I'm  sure  Mrs.  Gambell  used  to  go  there  to 
teach  in  Sunday  school." 

"  Oh,  the  Sunday  school !  That  wasn't  the  real 
thing — that  wasn't  the  real  Chinatown.  The  white 
girls  that  went  into  the  real  Chinatown  rarely  came 
back." 

"Why  not?" 

"  Can't  you  guess?  " 

"  I  should  think  the  police  would  have  rescued 
them." 

"  That  just  shows  how  little  you  know  about  it. 
Besides,  in  the  end  they  didn't  want  to  come  back. 
When  a  Chinaman  wants  a  white  slave,  he  doesn't 
have  to  imprison  her;  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  teach  her 
the  opium  habit." 

Muriel's  mother  shuddered. 

"How  dreadful!"  said  she. 


io4     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"Yes,"  said  the  father,  "it  was  dreadful;  but 
it  is  all  ended  now." 

Muriel,  who  had  been  sitting  in  the  shadow,  ven- 
tured a  comment. 

"  I  think  I'll  walk  down  there  some  day,"  she  re- 
marked. 

Her  father  turned  quickly  in  his  chair. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  were  listening,"  he  declared. 
"  I  think  you  will  do  nothing  of  the  sort." 

"  The  idea !  "  echoed  Muriel's  mother.  "  You  see, 
Fred,  what  it  means  to  a  child  to  have  a  father  who  is 
unable  to  provide  the  kind  of  a  bringing  up  that  will 
properly  protect  her." 

That  criticism  might  have  served  to  divert  the 
paternal  attention  from  daughter  to  mother,  but 
Muriel  again  interposed. 

"  If  the  fire's  wiped  it  all  out,"  said  she,  "  I  don't 
see  what  harm  there  can  be  in  going  there." 

11  Well*;"  responded  her  father,  "  you  sha'n't  go." 

Muriel  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"  Then  I  don't  believe  it  is  all  wiped  out,"  she 
replied. 

She  was  sixteen  years  old,  and  the  passion  for 
exploration  had  developed  with  indulgence.  Within 
a  week  she  had  "  gone  to  see." 

The  first  time,  though  her  family  was  never  in- 
formed of  it  one  way  or  the  other,  she  did  not  go 
alone.  With  two  other  girls  and  a  pair  of  boys  she 
made  the  excursion  in  "  a  slumming  party."  They 
passed  the  beaded  curtains  and  ate  of  strange,  savory 
food.  They  inhaled  the  incense,  they  tossed  the 
"prayer  sticks,"  and,  in  the  crowded  streets,  they 
gave  smile  for  smile  to  the  little  yellow  men  that 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WENT  TO  SEE      105 

shuffled  by  upon  heelless  shoes.  There  was  no  harm 
done,  and  the  boys  and  girls  liked  it;  but  what  most 
laid  its  hold  upon  Muriel  was  the  sense  that  for  each 
shadow  which  was  revealed  there  was  a  great  gulf  of 
enchanting  darkness  which  was  kept  mysteriously 
hidden. 

What,  she  perpetually  asked  herself,  was  this  that 
was  concealed?  She  resolved  to  continue  going  until 
she  saw  it. 

She  returned,  by  day,  to  the  restaurant  where  they 
had  dined,  now  with  a  companion  and  now  without. 
She  got  to  know  the  Chinese  dishes  by  name  and  was 
proud  of  it.  Soon  she  got  to  know  the  waiters  also 
by  name,  and  of  this  she  was  still  prouder.  Once 
she  ventured  into  the  cafe  alone  in  the  early  evening, 
and  the  proprietor  himself  waited  upon  her — he  was 
flatteringly  polite. 

After  that  Muriel  returned  more  often,  and  now 
always  alone.  She  felt  that  she  was  rapidly  paving, 
through  the  proprietor,  a  way  toward  the  revelation 
of  the  mystery: 

Something  lost  behind  the  Ranges.     Over  yonder.     G«  you  there! 

At  home,  conditions  had  become  worse  and  were 
rapidly  growing  intolerable.  Her  father  had  been 
sitting  idle,  in  the  faith  that  the  bank  would  end  by 
sending  for  him;  but  the  bank,  having  accepted  a 
politician's  notes  in  return  for  the  politician's  sub- 
sequently broken  promise  to  secure  for  it  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  city's  deposits,  sent  instead  for  a  receiver, 
and  Muriel's  father,  who  had  been  expensively  edu- 
cated in  the  trade  of  general  incapacity,  now  pro- 
ceeded to  sink  his  remaining  money  in  drink  and  to 


106    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

lavish  his  remaining  energy  in  quarrels.  Muriel 
found  solace  in  Chinatown,  amusement  in  the  pro- 
prietor's fascinating  descriptions  of  things  Oriental, 
and  credit  for  her  meals  and  tea. 

One  night  she  broached  the  subject  of  opium- 
smoking. 

The  proprietor  raised  his  long,  thin  eyebrows. 

"  That  is  all  exaggerated !  "  he  said — his  English 
was  better  than  Muriel's.  "  Some  of  my  country- 
men smoke  too  much  of  the  opium,  but  not  many — not 
nearly  so  many  as  those  Americans  that  drink  too 
much  of  the  whisky." 

"  Yet  it's  a  bad  habit,  isn't  it?  "  asked  Muriel. 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  proprietor,  "  if  you  acquire  it. 
But  it  is  nonsense,  this  talk  that  says  you  get  the  habit 
from  one  smoke.  You  do  not  get  it  from  a  hundred 
smokes.  A  man — even  a  woman — can  be  temperate 
in  opium  as  well  as  in  wine." 

"Are  you?" 

"  Do  I  not  attend  to  my  business?  " 

"  But  you  do  smoke?  " 

"  Perhaps  once  a  month.  I  lie  down  in  a  beautiful 
room.  I  think  of  good  things.  I  smoke  and  go  to 
sleep,  and  the  opium  makes  me  dream  only  of  the 
beautiful  and  the  good.  The  next  morning,  re- 
freshed, I  return  to  my  business." 

Muriel  wanted  to  hear  further  about  those  dreams, 
and  the  proprietor  of  the  restaurant  told  her.  She 
had  not  read  the  more  glowing  portions  of  De 
Quincey's  "  Confessions,"  as  so  many  foredoomed 
victims  have  done — she  had  not  read  any  of  "  The 
Confessions " — but  the  proprietor  sufficed.  She 
smoked  a  pipe  of  opium  in  his  rooms  that  night,  and 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WENT  TO  SEE      107 

the  only  thing  that  happened  was  a  sound  sleep,  a 
complete  forgetfulness  of  the  family  jars,  the  memory 
of  which  had  lately  been  breaking  her  rest.  Nobody 
disturbed  her.  When  she  woke,  the  proprietor,  still 
polite,  brought  her  breakfast,  and  all  that  she  had  to 
complain  of  was  a  slight  nausea  and  the  absence  of 
the  predicted  dreams. 

"  The  sickness  will  not  return,"  her  instructor  re- 
sponded, "  and  the  dreams  will  come  the  next  time 
or  the  next.  There  is  no  hurry;  one  can  wait." 

"  I  don't  know  that  there'll  be  any  next  time,"  said 
Muriel. 

"  Not  soon,"  said  the  proprietor.  "  You  must  not 
get  the  habit.  You  must  be  temperate,  as  I  am.  One 
can  wait." 

So  there  was  a  next  time.  There  were  several  of 
them.  Muriel  explained  them  to  her  parents  by 
saying  she  spent  the  nights  with  a  schoolgirl  friend 
that  had  moved  "  over  to  Oakland."  Then  there 
were  more  next  times,  not  a  month  apart,  and  during 
one  of  them  the  proprietor  reminded  her  of  her  bill 
at  the  restaurant.  .  .  . 

Muriel  had  said  that  she  was  going  to  Oakland  for 
the  week  end.  When  she  came  out  of  the  stupor,  a 
new  week  was  half  over.  At  first  she  was  afraid  to 
go  home.  Then  she  did  not  go.  And  then  she  did 
not  want  to  go. 

When  her  parents  had  at  last  told  the  police,  and 
the  police  had  at  last,  after  searching  everywhere  else, 
reached  San  Francisco's  Chinatown,  the  restaurant- 
proprietor  had  sold  Muriel  to  another  Chinaman,  and 
she  was  in  the  Chinatown  of  Chicago.  They  never 
found  her.  At  the  time  I  saw  her,  she  was  the  slave. 


io8     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

of  a  Chinaman  near  Harrison  Street,  in  Boston. 
That  Chinaman  had  to  keep  her  because,  though  she 
used  to  be  pretty,  she  was  not  pretty  any  longer,  and 
so  her  last  master  could  not  sell  her. 

XThe  well-nigh  invisible  web  had  proved  tenacious. 
Muriel  had  gone — and  seen.  The  shuffle  of  the  heel- 
less  shoes,  the  clatter  of  the  beaded  curtains,  the 
pungent  scent  of  the  joss-sticks — these  things  had 
called  her,  not  in  vain — 


Till  a  voice,  as  bad  as  Conscience,  rang  interminable  changes 
On  one  everlasting  Whisper  day  and  night  repeated  so: 

Something  hidden.    Go  and  find  it.    Go  and  look  behind  the  Ranges, 
Something  lost  behind  the  Ranges.     Lost  and  waiting  for  you.     Go ! 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  POOR 

IT  was  in  New  York,  after  seven  o'clock,  when 
Nada  turned  into  the  cluttered  street  in  which 
she  lived.  She  had  walked  north  on  Broadway 
to  Tenth  Street  and  then  dropped  into  the  great  tide 
of  black-clad  girls  sweeping  eastward  on  their  way 
from  work.  Their  faces  were  tired  and  their  feet 
heavy,  but  they  had,  most  of  them,  a  certain  assur- 
ance of  expression,  a  security  of  gait;  and  this,  Nada 
reflected,  must  be  because  they  were  at  least  sure 
that  the  rooms  to  which  they  were  going  would  con- 
tinue to  house  them,  because  they  knew  that  supper  of 
some  sort  would  be  waiting,  because,  to-morrow  morn- 
ing, they  would  turn  westward  to  work  for  which 
they  had  been  definitely  employed.  Nada's  step  was 
more  weary  than  any  of  these,  and  her  face  was  dull 
and  expressionless. 

Yet  she  was  a  pretty  girl.  In  spite  of  hunger  and 
seedy  clothes,  in  spite  even  of  the  devil  of  doubt  that 
in  her  heart  was  slowly  growing  into  a  devil  of  de- 
spair, she  was  pretty.  Her  hair  was  plentiful  and 
black,  her  pale  face  was  delicately  designed,  and  her 
large  dark  eyes  were  even  beautiful.  It  was  a  raw 
night  in  early  December,  but  Nada's  coat  was  in  the 
pawnshop  on  the  corner,  and  one  could  see  that  pov- 
erty had  not  yet  robbed  her  figure  of  all  its  possi- 
bilities. 

109 


no     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Somebody  had,  in  fact,  already  seen  as  much — 
somebody  in  a  large,  light-colored  overcoat,  with 
enormous  shoulders  constructed  regardless  of  the 
wearer's  shoulders  beneath,  and  a  carefully  brushed 
derby  hat  set  aslant  upon  a  round  head.  This  some- 
body was  following  Nada. 

He  had  taken  his  stand  on  a  crowded  Broadway 
corner  just  as  the  working  day  ended,  holding  a  ciga- 
rette between  his  yellow  fingers  and  shifting  from 
one  high-heeled  shoe  to  the  other  while  he  scanned  the 
passing  flood  of  home-going  girls  with  the  keen,  cold 
eye  that  a  horse  dealer  uses  to  estimate  the  horses 
driven  by  him  in  a  horse  bazaar.  He  seemed  to  hesi- 
tate about  several  of  these  girls;  now  and  again  he 
made  false  starts  after  this  one  or  that,  returning, 
when  a  few  steps  had  been  taken,  to  his  post.  But 
when  he  saw  Nada,  uncertainty  fell  from  him  and  he 
tracked  her  through  the  crowded  streets  to  this  corner 
of  the  street  in  which  she  lived. 

Nada  was,  however,  too  occupied  with  her  own 
thoughts  to  feel  that  chill  which  runs  through  the 
body  of  one  that  is  watched.  The  evening  was  cold 
enough  to  provide  a  more  commonplace  explanation 
for  chilliness.  She  turned  the  corner. 

The  street  was  badly  lighted,  it  was  narrow,  and 
it  was  swarming  with  returning  workers,  shouting 
children,  and  old  women  with  shawls  over  their  heads, 
carrying  little  bundles  of  provisions  or  kettles  of  beer. 
On  each  side  were  rows  of  houses,  all  much  alike  and 
all  converted,  by  tortuous  means,  from  the  housing 
of  one  family,  for  which  they  were  intended,  into 
small  apartments  for  the  housing  of  many  families. 
The  man  in  the  light  overcoat  with  huge  shoulders 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  POOR       in 

caught  up  with  Nada.  He  took  off  his  well-brushed 
derby,  showing  a  head  covered  with  sleekly  arranged 
hair. 

"  Pardon  me,"  he  said,  "  but  aren't  you  Miss  Ray- 
nor?" 

Nada  had  been  so  deeply  preoccupied  that  it  was 
hard  for  her  to  realize  the  meaning  of  any  interrup- 
tion. She  raised  her  dark  glance  slowly  to  the  speaker 
and  saw  that  he  was  a  very  young  man  indeed,  little 
more  than  a  boy,  in  fact.  She  did  not  then  under- 
stand that  his  lean  face  was  preternaturally  knowing, 
or  what  was  the  meaning  of  the  broad  red  edges  of 
his  drooping  lids. 

"  What  did  you  say?  "  she  inquired. 

"  I  asked  if  you  weren't  Miss  Raynor."  The 
young  man  smiled  pleasantly  and  his  voice,  though 
rough,  was  by  no  means  repellent.  "  I'm  Mr. 
Mitchell.  Don't  you  remember  meetin'  me  at  the 
Ivy  Social  Club's  dance?" 

"  No,"  said  Nada,  still  puzzled;  "  you're  mistaken. 
My  name  isn't  Raynor." 

"  Not  Miss  Raynor?  "  Mr.  Mitchell  seemed  al- 
most incredulous.  "  But  I  sure  must  have  met  you  at 
the  Ivy  Social  las'  Sat'day." 

"  I'm  afraid  not,"  said  Nada.  "  I  haven't  gone  to 
any  dance  for  a  long  while." 

"  I'm  sorry.     I  beg  your  pardon." 

"  There's  no  harm  done." 

"  No,  there  ain't,  is  there?  "  Mr.  Mitchell  smiled 
again,  but  he  was  standing  before  her  now  and  she 
could  not  conveniently  move  on.  "  You  see,"  he  ex- 
plained, "  I  thought  we'd  met,  an'  I  was  just  goin'  to 
ask  you  to  come  on  down  Second  Av'nue  to  a  good 


H2     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

cafe  with  me  for  supper.  I  feel  like  a  big,  red  steak 
this  evening,  an'  I  know  the  best  place  for  one  in 
N'  York.  But,  not  knowin'  me,  you  wouldn't  want 
to  go,  would  you?  " 

Nada's  stomach  cried  within  her,  but  with  the  cry 
came  a  warning.  She  had  heard  often  enough  of  men 

that  took  girls  to  supper  and  then She  couldn't 

go,  of  course,  and  yet  she  could  not  be  certain  that 
the  polite  Mitchell  really  meant  any  harm,  so  she  did 
not  speak  angrily. 

"  I'm  in  a  hurry,"  she  said.  "  I'm  much  obliged 
to  you,  but  I  must  get  home." 

"  Oh,  that's  all  right.    You  live  near  here?  " 

"  Two  doors  below." 

"  Well,  I'm  sorry.  Good-evenin'.  Hope  I'll  have 
the  pleasure  of  seein'  you  again." 

Mitchell  bowed  and  left  her,  and  Nada,  a  fevr 
steps  farther  on,  turned  into  her  own  house. 

She  climbed  the  dark  stairway,  reeking  with  the 
smells  of  cooking  from  the  many  apartments,  and 
ascended  to  the  landing  just  below  the  roof.  Then, 
without  knocking,  she  opened  a  door. 

Small  and  close  as  the  room  was,  it  was  swathed 
in  shadow.  The  only  light  came  from  a  dim  lamp, 
shadeless,  set  upon  a  bare  center  table.  The  table 
was  heaped  with  several  piles  of  small,  brightly 
colored  bits  of  cloth — here  a  pile  of  green,  there  one 
of  white,  and  beyond  a  pile  of  purple.  Cups  of  glue 
and  brushes  stood  between  the  piles,  and,  just  beside 
the  dim  lamp,  was  a  little  mound  of  something  that 
looked  like  flowers — a  strange  note  in  surroundings 
so  sordid. 

A  frail  woman  of  what  might  be  almost  any  age 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  POOR       113 

over  forty  sat  at  the  table  and  worked  with  the  paste 
and  the  bits  of  colored  cloth — and  coughed.  Three 
children,  eleven,  nine,  and  six  years  old,  sat  about 
her,  also  working.  They  were  pasting  together  imi- 
tation violets  for  hat  trimmings.  They  pasted  from 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  twelve  at  night. 
They  were  Nada's  widowed  mother  and  Nada's  sis- 
ters and  brother.  They  got  one  cent  for  every  one 
hundred  and  forty-four  "  violets  "  that  they  made, 
and  their  combined  highest  daily  wage  was  ninety-six 
cents. 

As  the  door  closed  behind  Nada,  the  woman 
looked  up,  coughing,  She  had  eyes  like  her  daugh- 
ter's, but  more  haggard. 

"  No  luck?  "  she  asked,  for  she  saw  Nada's  face 
as  the  girl  drew  nearer  the  table. 

The  girl  shook  her  head.  She  had  worked  in  a 
necktie  factory,  but  the  factory  had  been  shut  down 
for  a  month,  and  Nada  had  ever  since  been  tramping 
the  streets  in  search  of  a  job. 

"  I  think  by  this  time  I've  been  to  every  place  in 
N'  York,"  she  said  dully. 

She  sank  into  the  one  remaining  chair. 

The  mother  said  nothing.  They  two  had  long 
since  passed  the  stage  of  tears,  and  there  was  really 
nothing  to  be  said.  But  the  youngest  of  the  children 
set  up  a  thin  wail,  in  which  the  nine-year-old  boy 
began  fretfully  to  join. 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  can't  get  nothin',"  he  whim- 
pered. "I'm  tired." 

Nada  achieved  a  smile. 

"  Go  to  bed,"  she  commanded,  "  you  an'  Irene. 
I'll  do  your  work  to-night." 


II4     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  But  I  want  some  supper !  "  protested  the  small- 
est child. 

The  mother  got  up,  coughing,  and  presently 
brought  a  pot  of  coffee  and  two  bits  of  bread.  Irene 
and  her  brother  ate  and  then  lay  down  upon  a  thin 
mattress  on  the  floor  in  a  corner.  The  others  ate 
while  they  worked,  Nada's  stiffened  fingers  resuming 
the  endless  task  of  the  sleepers. 

"  One  man,"  she  said,  apropos  of  nothing,  "  asked 
me  if  it  was  true  that  people  like  us  kept  the  coal  in 
the  bathtub." 

"  What  did  you  tell  him  ?  "  inquired  her  eleven- 
year-old  sister. 

"  Told  him  I  didn't  know,  because  we  didn't  have 
no  bathtub  an'  we  didn't  have  no  coal." 

They  worked  for  an  hour  in  silence. 

"This  is  Tuesday,  ain't  it?  "  Nada  asked  at  last. 

Her  mother  nodded. 

"  You  seen  'em  about  the  rent?  "  said  Nada, 

"  Yes." 

"What'd  they  say?" 

"  They  can't  wait  a  day  longer'n  Sat'day." 

There  was  another  long  silence,  broken  only  by 
the  mother's  coughing. 

Nada  knew  what  caused  that  cough.  She  bent  her 
head  over  her  violets  in  order  that  her  face  might  not 
be  seen  and  its  expression  read.  Twice  it  was  on  her 
lips  to  tell  about  Mr.  Mitchell,  but  each  time  she  for- 
bore to  add  to  her  mother's  burden  of  worry. 

"  Well,"  she  said  at  last,  "  I'll  try  again  to-mor- 
row." 

She  did  try  on  the  morrow,  but  she  knew  that  her 
quest  was  hopeless,  and  hopeless  it  proved.  There 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  POOR       115 

was  the  same  long  round  of  interviews,  the  same  long 
list  of  refusals,  the  same  long  tramp  through  the 
windy  streets.  The  factories  were  full,  the  shops 
were  full,  there  were  no  vacant  places  in  the  kitchens 
of  the  restaurants,  and  the  domestic-employment 
agencies,  filled  with  girls  looking  for  general  house- 
work, had  need  only  of  trained  cooks  and  experienced 
children's  nurses.  Nada  turned  homeward  in  the 
chilly  darkness  and  at  the  corner  of  her  street  met 
Mr.  Mitchell. 

"Hello!  "said  Mr.  Mitchell. 

He  smiled  and  raised  his  hat.  Nada  noticed  that 
it  was  lined  with  folded  white  satin ;  it  reminded  her 
of  a  child's  coffin. 

"  Good-evenin',"  said  Nada. 

She  looked  at  young  Mr.  Mitchell.  He  seemed 
so  well  fed  and  warm  and  prosperous. 

"  You  look  tired  out,"  he  ventured,  in  his  most 
tenderly  concerned  manner. 

"  Then  I  don't  look  a  lie,"  said  Nada. 

"  You  must  have  a  hard  job." 

"  I've  got  the  hardest  there  is." 

"What's  that?" 

The  answer  escaped  Nada  before  she  could 
check  it. 

11  Lookin'  for  one,"  she  said  bitterly. 

Mr.  Mitchell  was  plainly  pained. 

"  You  don't  mean  you're  out  o'  work?  "  he  gasped. 

"  You  know  I  am,"  said  Nada. 

She  looked  him  steadily  in  his  bloodshot  eyes,  and 
his  eyes  fell. 

"  Of  course  I  didn't,"  he  lied. 

Nada  shrugged  her  thin  shoulders.     An  uncon- 


n6     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

trollable  desire  came  over  her  to  put  her  case  before 
this  stranger. 

"  My  father's  been  dead  two  years,"  she  said; 
"  I've  been  out  of  a  job  goin'  on  to  five  weeks;  my 
mother  an'  the  three  children  paste  hat  flowers  at  a 
cent  the  twelve  dozen;  they're  finishin'  the  last  order; 
everything's  hocked  that  can  be  hocked;  we'll  be 
turned  out  if  the  rent  ain't  paid  Sat'day,  an'  my 
mother's  got  consumption." 

Mr.  Mitchell  gasped  again. 

"  What  was  your  job  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Neckties." 

"Fired?" 

"  No.     The  shop  shut  down." 

"  Won't  it  start  up  again  soon?  " 

"  It  won't  never  start  up.    The  firm's  busted." 

"  An'  you "  He  glanced  at  her  narrowly,  and 

then  glanced  swiftly  away.  "  You  need  some 
money?  " 

"  I  ain't  livin'  on  my  interest." 

"  A  girl  as  good-lookin'  as  you,"  said  Mr.  Mitchell 
slowly,  "oughtn't  to  have  much  trouble  in  a  town 
like  N'  York." 

She  had  expected  this,  but,  now  that  it  had  come, 
she  had  learned  all  that  she  thought  she  wanted  to 
learn.  She  was  certain  now  what  he  was,  and  he 
filled  her  with  disgust  and  loathing. 

"  Well,  I  do  have  trouble,"  she  said,  pretending 
to  misunderstand.  "  But,"  she  added,  "  I'd  better 
be  running  along  now." 

"  Hold  up  a  minute,"  said  Mitchell.  "  Don't  you 
want  to  get  that  supper  with  me?" 

"Thanks;  but  I've  got  to  run  along." 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  POOR       117 

"  But  maybe  I  can  find  you  somethin'  to  do." 

"  If  you  can  " — again  speech  leaped  from  her 
without  will  of  her  own — "  you  let  me  know.  I'm 
by  here  every  night  at  this  time — an'  you  know  it." 

She  turned  away  and  again  went  home. 

And  at  home  everything  was  just  as  it  had  been 
the  night  before — every  one  of  so  many  nights  before. 
The  mother  and  the  children  were  working  in  the 
garret  room.  The  children  were  hungry  and  the 
mother  coughed. 

That  was  Wednesday  night. 

On  Thursday  the  same  thing  happened.  There 
was  the  same  series  of  heart-breaking  refusals,  the 
same  series  of  closed  doors,  the  same  long  trudging 
through  the  cold  streets — and  at  the  home  corner  the 
same  warm,  comfortable,  well-fed,  ready-to-help 
Mitchell  again. 

"  Hey,  there !    Wait  a  minute !  "  he  commanded. 

"  I've  got  to  hurry,"  Nada  answered,  and  she 
shivered,  but  not  from  cold. 

"  But  I  want  to  tell  you  somethin'." 

"  To-morrow  evening,"  she  said — for  she  would 
give  convention  one  more  chance. 

When  she  entered  the  room  she  found  the  two 
younger  children  already  abed. 

"  What's  the  trouble?  "  she  inquired,  with  a  tired 
glance  at  their  huddled  forms. 

The   mother   coughed. 

"  They're  sick,"  she  answered.  "  Irene's  got  a 
fever  an'  pains  in  her  stomach.  So's  he." 

"  They're  hungry,"  said  Nada. 

"  Yes,"  said  her  mother;  "  they're  hungry." 

Nada  began  to  work.    Presently  she  said, 


n8     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  Mother- "    And  then  she  stopped. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  her  mother. 

"  I  heard  of  a  sort  of  a  chance  this  evenin',"  said 
Nada. 

The  mother's  hand  shook  so  that  some  of  the  glue 
from  the  brush  she  was  holding  dropped  upon  the 
table. 

"No?    Is  it— is  it  true?" 

"  It's  only  a  chance.    I'm — I'm  not  sure." 

"What  is  it?" 

Nada  lied. 

"  It's  night  work,"  she  said.  "  It's  in  an  all-night 
restaurant  on  the  Bowery.  Washin'  dishes." 

"Thank  God!  "  said  her  mother. 

"  But  it  ain't  sure.    Of  course  it's  hard " 

"  I  know  you'd  do  it  for  us,  though,  Nada.  You've 
always  been  a  good  girl." 

"  An',"  continued  Nada,  looking  hard  at  the  white 
violet  she  was  making,  "  I'd  have  to  begin  about  eight 
o'clock  an'  work  on  till  the  middle  of  the  mornin'. 
I  was  so  glad  to  hear  of  it,  I  forgot  to  ask  the  wages. 
It  ain't  sure,  neither,"  she  repeated;  "but  the  boss 
says  he's  thinkin'  o'  firm'  one  of  the  girls,  an',  if  he 
does,  I'll  get  her  place.  It'll  help  a  lot." 

"  Thank  God!  "  said  the  mother  again;  and  then 
suddenly  she  drooped  over  the  table  and  began  to 
cough  and  sob. 

So,  having  prepared  an  explanation  to  cloak  the 
worst,  if  the  worst  should  happen,  Nada  went  out 
upon  her  quest  once  more  the  next  morning.  She 
was  seeking  her  last  chance. 

But  the  chance  was  not  apparent.  Nada  strained 
every  nerve  to  find  work — and  she  found  none. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  POOR       119 

Then  she  started  back. 

Once  or  twice  she  hesitated.  Once  or  twice  she 
stopped  short.  There  was  a  half  hour  when  she 
turned  westward,  out  of  her  course,  fighting.  There 
was  a  time  when  she  thought  of  entering  the  street 
by  the  far  end,  where  Mitchell  would  not  see  her; 
and  there  was  another  time  when  she  thought  of  the 
river.  But  then  she  would  hear  her  mother's  cough ; 
she  would  hear  the  whimper  of  the  hungry  children. 
So  she  went  on. 

When  she  met  Mitchell,  she  startled  him  by  her 
outspokenness. 

"  See  here,"  she  said,  "  if  I  go  into  business  for 
you,  what'll  I  earn?" 

He  drew  back,  flushing. 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  you  know!     What'll  I  earn ?" 

"  Well — it  depends  on  you." 

"Enough  to  bring  some  money  home?" 

"  Lots  of  it." 

"How  much?" 

"  I  tell  you,  it  depends  on  you,  kid." 

She  winced  at  the  epithet.  From  such  a  mouth, 
she  knew  what  it  implied.  But  she  went  on : 

"  I'm  thinkin'  about  my  mother  an'  the  children. 
How  much'll  there  be  for  them  ?  " 

"  She'll  be  on  Easy  Street." 

"Eight  a  week?" 

"  Maybe  ten." 

"  I  can  get  home  afternoons?  " 

"  Sure  you  can." 

"  Then  wait  here  a  minute." 

"But,  kid-^" 


120    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  Wait !  "  she  called  over  her  shoulder,  and  ran 
upstairs  and  into  the  room  that  had  been  her  home. 

She  did  not  look  at  her  mother,  but  she  flung  her 
arms  about  the  woman  and  burst  into  hysterical 
weeping. 

"It's  all  right!"  she  laughed  wildly.  "You'll 
have  some  money  in  advance  on  my  wages  to-mor- 
row, mother.  It's  all  right  I  " 

"You  got  the  dish-washin'  job?"  asked  the 
mother. 

"  Yes — yes,  I  got  the  dish-washin'  job." 

"Thank  God,  thank  God!  "  sobbed  the  mother, 
and  they  wept  together. 

Then  Nada  stood  up.  She  was  very  white  and 
calm. 

"  I  must  start  right  away,"  she  said. 

The  children  were  dancing  because  she  had  a  job. 

"You  shall  have  a  drum,"  she  said  to  the  boy; 
"  and  you,  Irene  and  Meta — you  shall  have  new 
dresses." 

And  she  kissed  them.    And  went  out. 

When  she  approached  the  smiling  Mitchell,  it 
was  with  the  face  like  the  face  of  a  virgin  led  to 
the  Minotaur. 

"Well?"  he  said. 

She  glanced  past  him,  down  the  street.  She  saw 
Tessie  Connor,  a  girl  from  the  same  tenement  house, 
approaching — a  girl  that  was  a  clerk  in  a  large  de- 
partment store — and  she  did  not  want  Tessie  to  ob- 
serve Mitchell. 

"  I'm  ready,"  she  said.    "  Hurry." 

But  Tessie  had  already  seen.  She  came  running 
up  to  them. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  POOR       121 

"  Nada,"  she  gasped,  breathless  from  her  run, 
"  I've  got  news  for  you.  The  store's  takin'  on  extra 
help  for  over  the  holidays — they  need  'em  for  the 
two-week  rush — an'  I've  spoken  to  the  basement  boss 
an'  he  can  give  you  a  job  till  Christmas." 

So  Nada  was  reprieved. 

But  Christmas  was  only  two  weeks  away,  and  after- 
ward  


XI 

THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE 

THE  Statistician,  the  Philanthropist,  and  the 
Man  That  Only  Writes  were  talking  things 
over. 

"  Let  us  take  again,"  said  the  Statistician,  "  those 
figures  from  Waverley  House.  Waverley  House  is 
a  place — it  wouldn't  want  the  forbidding  name  of 
'  institution  ' — in  New  York  City  where  certain  kind 
and  experienced  persons  are  permitted  by  the  lower 
courts  to  take  and  care  for  girls  for  whom,  being 
young  in  wrong,  there  seems  to  be  a  chance  of  refor- 
mation." 

The  other  two  nodded. 

"  Well,"  continued  the  Statistician,  "  in  one  year 
Waverley  House  had  three  hundred  of  these  girls. 
Out  of  that  three  hundred  the  largest  number — 
ninety-five,  to  be  exact — had  previously  been  domestic 
servants." 

The  Philanthropist  looked  up,  stroking  his  gray 
mustache. 

"  And  what,"  he  asked,  "  would  you  figure  as  the 
general  percentage  of  former  domestic  servants  in 
this  class  at  large?  " 

"  I  should  say  about  sixty  per  cent,"  answered  the 
Statistician. 

"  Exactly,"  chimed  the  Philanthropist,  "  and  yet 
here  is  our  young  friend  that  does  nothing  but  write, 


THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE        123 

laying  the  blame  for  the  vast  bulk  of  the  Social  Evil 
upon  Poverty." 

The  writing-man  made  a  timid  suggestion. 

"  Don't  you  think,"  he  inquired,  "  that  poverty 
forces  the  girl  to  become  a  servant  in  a  household 
where  the  work  is  far  in  excess  of  the  wages,  and 
that  then  hard  work  and  poor  quarters  force  her  to 
seek  recreation  among  conditions  where  her  '  fall '  is 
easily  accomplished?  " 

"  I  do  not,"  replied  the  Philanthropist.  "  If  sixty 
per  cent,  of  these  women  come  from  the  servant-girl 
class,  your  poverty  theory  falls  to  the  ground,  for 
there  has  never  been  so  great  a  demand  for  servants 
as  there  is  now,  and  the  servants'  wages  have  never 
been  so  high." 

"  You  don't  believe  that  servants  are  inherently 
vicious  merely  because  they  are  servants?" 

"  Certainly  not !  " 

"  Yet  you  admit  the  truth  of  these  statistics?" 

"  I  do,  and  I  say  that  is  where  your  poverty  theory 
goes  to  pieces.  We  need  servants  in  our  homes  and 
we  pay  them  well." 

"  Do  you  ?  "  asked  the  Mere  Writer,  who  is  a  very 
mild  man.  "  But  if  the  statistics  are  true,  if  serv- 
ants aren't  inherently  vicious,  and  if  poverty  isn't  to 
blame,  what  is  to  blame  ?  Do  servants  *  go  wrong ' 
as  an  inevitable  result  of  your  home  influences?  " 

The  Philanthropist  grew  angry.  His  gray  mus- 
tache bristled. 

"  You  are  an  impudent  puppy !  "  he  said. 

"  If  I  answered  my  last  question  in  the  affirmative  I 
might  seem  so,"  the  Writer  answered;  "but  may  I 
have  a  moment  to  make  myself  clear?  " 


a 24     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  You  may  have  all  night." 

"  I  sha'n't  want  an  hour.  I  shall  merely  tell  you 
a  couple  of  stories — true  stories,  too." 

"  All  right,"  assented  the  Philanthropist,  who  is  a 
good  man  and  wants  to  do  good  in  the  world;  "  fire 
away." 

"  In  the  first  place,"  began  the  Mere  Writer, 
"  there  was  Tillie — Tillie  was  not  a  lady's-maid  or  an 
expert  cook  or  anything  of  that  sort.  They  may  or 
may  not  get  high  wages.  I  know  very  little  about 
them,  but  I  do  know  that  they  are  in  the  minority  of 
their  class;  that  their  condition  isn't  typical.  Now, 
Tillie  was  typical;  she  was  just  a  strong,  healthy 
girl  that  set  out  to  be  a  maid-of-all-work;  she 
came  of  poor  people;  her  parents  were  dead;  it 
was  necessary  that  she  earn  her  own  living.  So 
she  got  a  job  as  chambermaid  in  a  big  Detroit 
hotel. 

"  There's  a  good  deal  to  be  said  against  the  treat- 
ment of  the  servants  in  some  of  our  large  hotels — 
where  they're  sometimes  herded  like  cattle  and  often 
treated  as  worse — but  that  hasn't  anything  to  do  with 
the  present  case.  Besides,  as  she  came  to  look  back 
on  it  in  after  days,  Tillie  didn't  think  this  hotel  half 
bad.  At  any  rate,  she  had  regular  hours  and  regular 
duties.  Both  were  carefully  defined,  and  she  was  not 
expected  to  exceed  either.  She  wasn't  asked  to  do 
work  outside  of  her  prescribed  line,  and  when  her 
4  day '  was  over  she  was  definitely  through  her  tasks. 
Besides,  the  people  that  stopped  at  the  hotel,  though 
there  was  now  and  then  one  that  complained,  treated 
her,  on  the  whole,  with  consideration.  Take  it  by 


THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE        125 

and  large,  I  should  say  that  she  was  pretty  well 
satisfied. 

"  But  a  rather  well-to-do  Rochester  woman  came 
to  the  hotel  with  her  husband,  who  was  in  Detroit  on 
business,  and  this  woman — we'll  call  her  Mrs.  Sandys 
— took  rather  a  shine  to  Tillie.  That  is  to  say,  she 
gave  Tillie  so  to  understand.  Afterward,  Tillie 
heard  that  Mrs.  Sandys  was  accustomed  to  taking 
shines  to  other  people's  servants,  thus  taking  the 
servants  (after  she'd  had  a  chance  to  observe  their 
fitness  upon  practical  test)  and  also  saving  the  money 
that  would  otherwise  go  in  the  form  of  intelligence- 
office  commissions. 

"  At  any  rate,  the  trick  worked  with  Tillie.  Mrs. 
Sandys  managed  things  so  that  she  saw  Tillie  handle 
a  few  plates  and  cups  and  saucers. 

"'What  wages  do  you  get  here?'  asked  Mrs. 
Sandys. 

"  Tillie  told  her. 

"  '  But  don't  you  sometimes  think,'  asked  the 
woman  from  Rochester,  *  that  it  would  be  nicer  for 
you  if  you  had  a  place  as  a  housemaid  in  a  good 
family?' 

"  Tillie  said  that  this  had  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
occurred  to  her. 

"  '  Oh,  but  I  am  quite  sure  it  would  be  nicer,'  said 
Mrs.  Sandys.  '  You  would  then  have  the  advantage 
of  a  good  home  among  refined  surroundings  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing,  you  know.' 

"  She  spoke  in  her  most  elegant  manner,  and  her 
phrases  were  large  in  implication.  She  talked  on  and 
on,  and  Tillie  brightened.  Was  Tillie  living  in  the 
hotel?  No,  Tillie  was  'living  out.'  Was  it  a  long 


126     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

walk  to  and  from  work  ?  It  was.  Hum !  Well,  the 
woman  from  Rochester  thought  it  might  just  be  pos- 
sible to  make  a  place  for  Tillie  in  the  Rochester  home. 
And  about  the  wages?  Oh,  yes,  to  be  sure;  about 
the  wages.  Well,  Mrs.  Sandys  would  offer — did 
offer — what  sounded  like  very  good  wages  to  Mrs. 
Sandys. 

1  *  But,  counting  tips,  I'm  getting  a  good  deal 
more  than  that  in  this  place,  ma'am,'  said  the  puzzled 
Tillie. 

" '  Of  course  you  are,  my  dear;  but  you  say 
you're  living  out — I  think  you  said  you  were  living 
out?' 

"  '  Yes,  ma'am.' 

"  '  Well,  with  me  you  will  save  your  lodging  and 
board,  and,  of  course,  they  will  be  far  superior  to 
what  you  are  getting  now.  You  mustn't  forget  that, 
you  know,  and  you  mustn't  forget  the  advantages  of 
service  in  a  refined  home.' 

"  So  Tillie  took  the  job. 

"  And  what  did  she  find  ?  The  Rochester  people 
had  a  handsome  house,  but  their  servants  slept  in  low 
garrets,  badly  ventilated.  The  family  ate  good  food, 
but  its  domestics  would  have  to  give  first-rate  reasons 
why  the  family's  Sunday  roast  wasn't  large  enough 
for  the  family's  cold  lunch  on  Monday  and  the 
family's  hash  at  Tuesday's  breakfast.  Mrs.  Sandys 
knew  about  as  much  of  administration  as  she  knew  of 
the  true  economy  of  labor — which  was  precisely  noth- 
ing at  all.  The  '  refinement '  of  the  employers  was 
pretty  much  limited  to  occasions  when  company  was 
present;  it  certainly  had  not  expended  itself  in  the 
planning  of  the  servants'  quarters;  and  Tillie's  bene- 


THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE        1271 

fits  from  the  '  home  life  '  were  largely  gathered  while 
she  was  making  the  beds  and  emptying  the  slops. 

"  The  family  consisted  of  the  father  and  mother — 
the  former  that  easy-going  type  of  American  husband 
who  considers  any  interference  with  household  mat- 
ters as  below  the  dignity  of  masculinity — a  homely 
daughter,  who  had  her  own  ideas  of  what  servants 
should  be,  and  who  was  far  enough  beyond  the  usual 
marrying  age  to  be  generally  critical;  one  son  in 
his  middle  teens,  who  wanted  to  be  a  deal  older, 
and  a  small  boy  and  girl  of  ten  and  five  years,  respec- 
tively. Each  one  of  these  persons,  excepting  the 
father,  gave  orders  that  perpetually  clashed  with  the 
orders  given  by  all  the  others;  each  individual  in  the 
family  seemed  to  consider  all  the  servants  as  his 
peculiar  and  especial  property. 

"  As  for  the  servants,  there  was  a  nurse  for  the 
children,  a  cook,  a  man  that  combined  the  duties  of 
gardener  and  coachman — and  Tillie.  Because  one  of 
these  was  always  being  called  upon  to  perform  tasks 
that  properly  belonged  to  another,  they  were  in  a 
continuous  condition  of  confusion. 

"  Tillie,  who  straightway  found  that  she  was  ex- 
pected to  wait  on  table  as  well  as  do  the  regular  work 
of  a  chambermaid — not  to  mention  helping  to  wash 
the  dishes — slept  in  a  small  room  with  the  cook. 
The  room  had  one  bed,  one  pitcher  and  basin,  the  two 
trunks  of  its  occupants,  and  a  narrow  window.  Tillie 
rose  at  dawn  and  was  at  the  call  of  duty  until  half 
an  hour  after  the  family  went  to  sleep.  She  was  not 
permitted  to  receive  visitors  on  the  premises — indeed, 
there  was  no  room  in  which  she  could  receive  them — 
and  her  holidays  were  a  mere  farce.  She  had  the 


128     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Thursday  afternoon  and  evening  *  off '  in  one  week 
and  the  Sunday  afternoon  and  evening  '  off '  in  the 
next;  she  should  have  had  both  Thursdays,  but  she 
and  the  cook  alternated  then  so  that  there  would  be 
someone  on  hand  to  prepare  the  Thursday  supper. 
When  she  did  get  out  she  had  always  to  be  back  by 
ten  o'clock. 

"  There  were  other  trials,  too.  The  youngest  child 
developed  a  malignant  contagious  disease — I  think  it 
was  scarlet  fever — and  Tillie  was  forced  to  share  in 
the  nursing,  on  peril  of  losing  her  job.  Then  the  ten- 
year-old  boy  one  afternoon  flew  into  a  temper  and 
spat  in  Tillie's  face,  and,  as  Tillie  seized  him  by  the 
arm  to  drag  him  before  the  bar  of  parental  justice, 
parental  justice  sailed  down  the  hall  in  the  persons 
of  Mrs.  Sandys  and  her  spinster  daughter. 

"  '  Good  heavens,  Tillie !  '  shrieked  Mrs.  Sandys. 
'  What  on  earth  are  you  doing  to  Master  James  ?  ' 

"  '  He  spat  in  my  face,  ma'am,'  said  Tillie. 

"  *  I  didn't!  '  howled  Master  James. 
*  Yes,  he  did,  ma'am,'  persisted  Tillie. 

"  *  She's  a  liar!  '  James  cried. 

"  '  James,'  said  the  spinster  sister  mildly,  *  you 
shouldn't  use  such  language — really.'  Then  she 
turned  blazing  eyes  on  Tillie.  *  Of  course,'  she  con- 
cluded, '  we  accept  my  brother's  word.' 

'  '  And  in  any  event,'  supplemented  Mrs.  Sandys, 
*  I  never  permit  my  servants  to  correct  my  children.' 

"  I  could  tell  you  more.  There  are  not  a  few  cases 
where  the  '  fall '  of  the  serving-maid  has  been  brought 
about  by  the  husband  of  her  employer  or  by  his  eldest 
son,  but  nothing  of  that  sort  occurred  in  the  Sandys 
house.  There  Tillie's  relations  with  the  lad  in  his 


THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE        129 

middle  teens  consisted  of  cleaning  him  and  smug- 
gling him  upstairs  when  he  came  home  drunk  at 
night,  and  of  pressing  his  clothes  three  times  a 
week. 

"  The  point,  however,  that  I'm  making  is  that 
Tillie  was  reduced  to  a  state  of  poverty.  I  don't 
mean  financial  poverty  alone,  but  other  sorts  of 
poverty  as  well :  as  poverty  of  surroundings,  poverty 
of  lodgings,  poverty  of  recreation  and  joy — against 
which  there  finally  came  a  perfectly  natural  reaction 
that  itself  was  misdirected  into  evil  channels  by 
the  conditions  that  her  employers  imposed  upon 
her." 

The  Mere  Writer  stopped.  He  leaned  back  in  his 
chair  in  the  attitude  that  the  lawyer  assumes  when 
he  has  rested  his  case. 

"  That's  all,"  he  said. 

"There's  no  more?"  asked  the  Statistician. 

"Why  should  there  be?"  responded  the  Mere 
Writer.  "  The  only  place  that  Tillie  could  meet 
friends  was  on  the  street.  She  went  to  the  street,  and 
in  the  end  she  stayed  there.  I  met  her  the  other 
night.  What  do  you  think  of  the  case?  " 

"  Not  typical,"  said  the  gray  Philanthropist. 

"Why  not?" 

"  Because  most  people  don't  treat  their  servants  in 
that  way." 

"  There  are  many  that  treat  them  worse,  I  grant, 
but,  though  the  details  differ,  the  large  majority  of 
householders  don't  treat  their  servants  any  better." 

"  I  don't  agree  with  you,"  said  the  Philanthropist. 
"  Many  families  have  servants'  parlors.  My  servants 


130     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

have  a  parlor  and  friends  may  see  them  there — I  am 
quite  certain  that  they  may,  quite  certain." 

The  Mere  Writer  smiled. 

"  Have  you  any  idea,"  he  asked,  "  how  many 
families  employing  servants  there  are  in  the  United 
States?  I'm  not  asking  the  Statistician,"  he  hur- 
riedly explained  as  the  Statistician's  face  lighted  to 
reply;  "I'm  asking  you." 

"  No,"  answered  the  Philanthropist,  now  wary  of 
traps;  "  I'm  sure  I  don't  know." 

"Still,  a  good  many?" 

"  Yes,  of  course." 

"  Many  thousands  in  fact?  " 

"  I  suppose  so." 

"  Well,  how  many  of  them  do  you  honestly  sup- 
pose treat  their  servants  as  well  as  you  treat  yours?  " 
The  Philanthropist  fidgeted. 

"  The  Sandys  family  isn't  in  the  majority,"  he  in- 
sisted. 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  sort  is  in  the  majority,"  said 
the  Mere  Writer,  "  the  sort  that,  once  in  a  while, 
runs  a  bit  short  and  makes  its  servant  wait  overtime 
for  her  pay." 

"  I  don't  believe  it,"  said  the  Philanthropist. 

"Ask  the  Statistician,"  suggested  the  Writer; 
and,  as  the  Statistician  nodded  assent,  the  Writer 
went  on:  "Also,  barring  the  native  negroes,  the 
majority  of  domestic  servants  in  our  cities  and  large 
towns  are  foreign-born.  They  are  poor,  in  all  the 
senses  that  Tillie  was  poor;  they  are  desperately 
lonely;  they  don't  know  where  to  look  for  company 
and  they  drift  into  the  wrong  sort  of  places  in  search 
of  it. 


THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE        131 

"  This  brings  me  to  my  second  story,  the  story  of 
Lena.  I  think  you'll  admit  that  it's  typical,  any- 
how." 

The  Writer  filled  his  pipe. 

"  Lena,"  he  began,  "  worked  for  a  thoroughly  re- 
spectable and  thoroughly  well-meaning  family  in 
Brooklyn.  She  began  by  trying  to  do  the  right  thing 
by  that  family,  according  to  her  lights,  and  the  family 
tried  all  through  to  do  the  right  thing  by  Lena,  ac- 
cording to  its  lights.  The  only  trouble  was  that  the 
family's  lights  weren't  any  brighter  than  the  average. 

"  There  were  five  persons  in  the  family, — let's  say 
their  name  was  Randall, — the  father,  who  earned  a 
fair  salary  as  head  of  a  small  department  in  a  big 
concern;  the  mother,  who  thought  he  ought  to  earn 
more  and  pretty  consistently  tried  to  convince  her 
neighbors  that  he  did;  one  boy,  who  went  to  the 
high  school,  and  two  small  girls.  Lena  was  the  only 
servant. 

"  Lena  had  to  get  up  first  and  put  the  fires  in  order. 
Then  she  had  to  get  breakfast  for  Mr.  Randall, 
whose  job  roused  him  pretty  early.  The  theory  was 
that  the  family  should  all  breakfast  together,  but,  as 
usual,  that  theory  rarely  worked  out.  The  boy  had 
next  to  be  wakened  (Lena  making  several  trips  from 
the  kitchen  range  to  hammer  on  his  bedroom  door) , 
because  the  high  school  was  a  considerable  distance 
from  the  Randall  house.  Then  came  the  girls,  whose 
school  was  closer  by.  As  a  rule,  Mrs.  Randall  lay 
abed  and  breakfasted  after  the  others  had  gone.  So, 
though  no  one  breakfast  amounted  to  much,  Lena 
generally  had  to  get  a  bunch  of  them  every  morning, 


132     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

and,  because  she  had  so  much  to  do,  she  did  it  on 
one  cup  of  tea  by  way  of  breakfast  for  herself. 

"  Then,  while  Mrs.  Randall  lingered  over  her 
bacon  and  eggs,  there  was  the  daily  conference  about 
the  marketing. 

"  *  Whatever  shall  we  get  for  to-day,  Lena  ?  '  Mrs. 
Randall  would  yawn. 

"  And  Lena  would  suggest  something  and  be  told 
that  she  was  extravagant,  and  Mrs.  Randall  would 
suggest  something  else  and  be  told  that  they  had  had 
that  yesterday. 

"  It  was  a  difficult  problem.  Randall  made  his 
wife  one  regular  weekly  allowance  for  spending 
money  and  another  for  the  marketing,  and  Mrs. 
Randall  liked  to  augment  the  former  by  economies 
with  the  latter.  She  wasn't  a  spender,  but  she  liked 
clothes  that  were  a  little  better  than  her  husband's 
salary  justified.  It  seemed  to  her,  too,  that  money 
spent  on  food  brought  very  small  return — you  could 
always  tell  whether  a  person  was  well  dressed,  but 
who  ever  knows  what  a  person  eats,  anyhow  ?  Mrs. 
Randall's  sole  difficulty  was  Mr.  Randall;  he  was 
what  she  called  '  a  hearty  eater,'  and  one  of  the  prob- 
lems of  Lena's  life  was  to  establish  a  working  syn- 
thesis between  Mrs.  Randall's  economies  and  Mr. 
Randall's  appetite. 

"  Still,  the  mistress  was  sure  that  she  did  not 
shoulder  too  much  upon  the  maid.  Mrs.  Randall 
herself  made  the  beds  and  *  did  the  dusting.' 

"  Meanwhile,  Lena  wasn't  what  you'd  call  idle. 
Every  weekday  she  cooked  luncheon  and  dinner  as 
well  as  the  breakfasts.  On  Monday  she  did  the 
heavy  family  washing,  Mrs.  Randall  helping  out 


THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE        133 

by  taking  care,  on  that  day  only,  of  the  dirty  dishes. 
On  Tuesdays  Lena  got  through  as  much  of  the  iron- 
ing as  her  other  duties  would  permit,  and  that  job 
she  finished  on  Wednesdays.  Thursdays  were  her 
easiest  days;  she  had  Thursday  afternoons  and  even- 
ings free — after  she'd  got  the  supper  ready  in  ad- 
vance, and,  of  course,  with  the  understanding  that 
she'd  wash  the  dishes  on  her  return  at  10  P.M.  On 
Friday  she  would  have  to  sweep  practically  the  whole 
house,  and  on  Saturdays  she'd  bake  and  scrub. 
Lastly,  there  was  Sunday,  when  the  family  dined  at 
one-thirty  on  a  dinner  that  required  all  the  earlier 
part  of  the  day  to  prepare,  and  every  other  Sunday 
Lena  could  go  out  as  soon  as  she  had  '  cleaned  up  ' 
the  debris  of  that  dinner  and  '  laid  out '  a  cold  supper 
— much  as  they  lay  out  a  corpse — which,  by  straining 
every  nerve,  sometimes  got  her  clear  of  the  house 
as  early  as  half-past  four,  and  left  her  with  more 
dishes  to  wash  when  she  came  back. 

"  There  were  always,  in  fact,  dishes  to  wash  before 
she  went  to  bed,  and  there  was  always  extra  sweep- 
ing to  do.  The  little  girls  would  make  candy — and 
leave  the  dishes.  Mr.  Randall,  en  route  for  sleep, 
would  '  potter  around '  (it  was  his  own  phrase)  get- 
ting himself  a  late  bite — and  leave  the  dishes.  All  the 
children  would  come  into  the  house  with  a  fine  for- 
getfulness  of  the  doormat,  and  then,  anyhow,  there 
were  the  front  steps  and  the  pavement  to  be 
cleaned. 

"  In  short,  Lena  generally  ended  her  day  ex- 
hausted. 

"  There  was  also  a  system  of  fines.  When  Lena 
broke  a  dish,  the  price  of  the  dish  was  deducted  from 


i34     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

her  wages.  Wrongly,  but  not  unnaturally,  Lena  sus- 
pected Mrs.  Randall  of  raising  the  price  of  all  china 
as  fast  as  it  fell  to  the  floor,  and  so  Lena  did  not 
always  report  every  smash-up.  Moreover,  the  mis- 
tress kept  all  pies  and  cakes  under  her  own  lock  and 
key — '  to  keep  them  from  the  children,'  she  explained 
with  a  glance  toward  Lena  that  Lena  didn't  miss; 
once  or  twice,  though  the  servant  always  needed  her 
money  on  pay-day,  Mrs.  Randall  would  be  a  week 
late  in  payment,  having  herself  run  short;  and  regu- 
larly, before  the  meat  left  the  table,  the  head  of  the 
house  sliced  from  it  as  much  as  he  thought  Lena 
ought  to  consume,  while  his  wife  doled  out  vege- 
tables to  the  same  extent.  Many  of  the  cakes  that 
Lena  made  she  never  so  much  as  tasted. 

"  There's  no  use  describing  Lena's  room.  It  was 
just  what  Tillie's  had  been,  only  not  half  the  size. 
It  was  cold  in  winter  and  hot  in  summer  and  close 
all  the  year  'round.  But  you  can  see  by  all  this  about 
how  much  of  real  living  fell  to  Lena's  share  of  exist- 
ence. 

"  Besides  which,  Lena  had  troubles  of  her  own 
that  Mrs.  Randall  never  dreamed  about.  Over  in 
a  Boston  asylum  there  was  the  orphan  son  of  the 
maid's  sister,  and  the  maid  liked  to  pinch  her  pennies 
to  send  him  trifles.  Across  the  ocean  there  was 
Lena's  old  mother,  and,  come  what  might,  a  regular 
sum  of  money  had  to  go  into  a  foreign  money-order 
every  month. 

"  *  When  you  get  through  the  supper  dishes,'  Mrs. 
Randall  had,  at  the  outset,  said  to  her,  '  I  suppose 
you'd  like  to  have  a  chance  to  see  some  friends?  ' 

"  '  Yes,  ma'am,'  said  Lena. 


THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE        135 

"  *  Very  well,  I  don't  object  to  some  of  your  women 
friends  calling  on  you  in  the  kitchen  then.' 

"  But  Lena  had  only  a  few  women  friends,  and 
these  friends  being  in  similar  positions,  had  no  more 
chance  to  call  on  Lena  than  Lena  had  to  call  on  them, 
so,  when  the  postman  began  to  smile  on  her  and  the 
milkman  evinced  signs  of  an  awakening  interest,  she 
inquired: 

"'What  about  gentlemen  friends,  ma'am?' 

"  Mrs.  Randall  hesitated  and  answered  at  last  ac- 
cording to  her  conscience. 

"  *  It  wouldn't  do,'  she  said,  *  for  you  to  have 
a  lot  of  men  coming  here  in  the  evenings,  but  I  sup- 
pose there'd  be  no  objection  to  one  if  he  was  really 
nice.' 

"  She  stopped  there,  because  she  suddenly  realized 
that,  whereas  numbers  were  not  to  be  thought  of,  one 
might  spell  marriage  and  rob  her  of  a  good  servant. 
Yet  she  wanted  to  be  just,  and  she  therefore  con- 
cluded : 

"  *  But  he  mustn't  come  before  you  are  through 
your  work  and  he  must  leave  before  ten  o'clock.' 

"  Lena  chose  the  milkman,  and  the  milkman  called 
regularly  once  a  week  for  the  half-hour  permitted. 
He  had  a  good  job  and,  as  Lena  was  fair-haired 
and  blue-eyed  and  pretty,  he  fell  in  love  with  her. 
He  meant  to  marry  her,  and  Lena  knew  it,  only,  in 
the  kitchen,  even  honorable  love-making  reverses  the 
process  of  the  parlor:  it  begins  with  the  kisses  and 
approaches  the  declaration  and  proposal  gradually. 

"  Of  this  reversal  Mrs.  Randall  was  unaware. 
One  night,  the  lovers'  ardor  having  driven  from  their 
minds  all  thought  of  time — quite  as  if  they  were 


136     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

parlor  lovers,  you  see — Mrs.  Randall  overheard  the 
sound  of  the  milkman's  voice  from  the  kitchen  at 
the  forbidden  hour  of  half-past  ten,  and  flung 
open  the  door  to  find  Lena  and  her  young  man 
kissing. 

"  Now,  Mrs.  Randall,  I  insist,  hadn't  an  unclean 
mind.  She  simply,  as  I've  said,  didn't  understand  the 
etiquette  of  kitchen  love-making,  and  she  was  secretly 
inclined  toward  the  belief  that  true  love  does  not  ex- 
tend downward  to  the  grade  of  milkmen.  Conse- 
quently, she  lost  her  temper.  She  made  charges  that 
sent  Lena  crying  to  the  garret  room,  and  she  so  fright- 
ened the  milkman  by  the  apparent  difficulties  of  his 
wooing  that  he  never  renewed  it.  Anyhow,  after 
that  Mrs.  Randall  got  milk  from  another  wagon,  and 
the  milkman  never  came  back." 

Again  the  Mere  Writer  paused. 

"And  then?"  asked  the  Philanthropist. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  writer,  "  the  rest  of  Lena's  story 
is  simply  the  end  of  Tillie's  over  again.  Lena  was 
a  faithful  servant  and  stayed  a  long  time,  but  at  last 
the  whole  combination  of  circumstances  forced  her 
into  meeting  men  friends  in  the  streets  on  her  Thurs- 
day and  Sunday  nights  out,  and  one  of  these  friends, 
assisted  by  the  circumstances  of  the  acquaintance- 
ship, finally  deceived  her.  I  call  her  case  typical." 

"  I  don't,"  said  the  Philanthropist. 

"  Seventy-five  per  cent,  of  these  unfortunate 
women,"  began  the  Statistician,  "  have  records  that 
forbid  us  to  believe  them  open  to  forcing  either  into 
or  out  of  wickedness.  Their  records  are  such  as  show 
that  the  gentler  feelings " 


THE  WOMEN  THAT  SERVE        137 

"  I  saw  Lena  in  the  Night-Court  a  week  or  so 
ago,"  interrupted  the  Mere  Writer  reflectively. 
"  She  had  occasion  to  hand  me  a  couple  of  letters 
addressed  to  her.  Those  letters  showed  that  she'd 
never  yet  failed  either  the  little  orphan  in  Boston  or 
the  old  mother  across  the  sea." 


XII 
THE  WOMAN  THAT  IS  BOHEMIAN 

A1ONG  the  letters  that  reached  me  while  these 
sketches  were  appearing  in  serial  form  was 
one  from  a  woman  in  Atlanta,  Ga.     In  it  she 
tells  me  the  story  of  a  girl  with  whom  she  was  once 
intimately  connected,  and  she  concludes: 

"  You  see  how  it  was  with  Alice.  She  is  not  a  '  White  Slave,' 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  she  is  just  as  much  a  danger  to  society  as  if 
she  were — perhaps  more  of  a  danger  than  if  she  were;  for,  though 
the  White  Slave  suffers  more  and  is  a  menace  to  others,  Alice  and 
girls  like  her,  suffering  less  directly,  walk  among  their  fellows 
and  sow  seeds  of  evil  when  none  suspects  them.  The  White  Slave 
is  at  least  known,  but  the  Alices  take  their  victims  unaware. 

"  And  yet  you  must  note  from  what  I  have  written  that  Alice 
wasn't  altogether  to  blame.  She  came  to  that  city  clean  and  un- 
suspecting. The  woman  she  fell  in  with  was  married  to  a  pro- 
fessional man  and  had  a  respectable  appearance  and  some  friends 
who  were  even  Society  people,  or  said  she  had.  She  took  Alice  to 
that  bohemian  club  and  taught  her  to  drink. 

"  Then  slowly  she  taught  her  other  things,  and  at  last  turned 
her  over  to  a  young  West  Virginian  who  was  one  of  her  (I  mean 
the  married  woman's)  lovers  whenever  he  happened  to  go  North 
on  what  he  called  '  business '  and  left  his  wife  at  home. 

"  I  think  that  whoever  is  dealing  with  this  whole  problem  can't 
afford  to  leave  out  of  consideration  such  women  as  the  one  I  am 
telling  you  about  and  the  one  that  Alice  has  become.  From  what 
I  have  heard,  this  sort  are  increasing  in  our  cities  and  are  spread- 
ing harm  among  a  class  of  girls  that  would  otherwise  lead  good 
lives." 

Now,  with  all  that  my  correspondent  writes,  I  do 
not  entirely  agree;  but  in  the  main  she  is  right.  The 
situation  that  she  describes  is  a  commonplace  and  an 

138 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  IS  BOHEMIAN       139' 

increasing  commonplace.  The  type  is  growing  and 
it  is  at  least  more  insidious  than  the  "  White  Slave  " 
type.  Its  passion  is  to  spread  evil. 

Moreover,  my  correspondent  mentioned  the  name 
of  the  woman  that  corrupted  Alice.  Oddly  enough,  I 
know  that  woman. 

Should  her  picture  be  included  in  the  present  gal- 
lery? For  some  time  I  have  thought  so;  now  this 
letter  confirms  my  opinion.  Because  her  methods  are 
at  once  so  disastrous  and  so  insidious — because  they 
threaten  a  grade  of  society  usually  supposed  to  be 
exempt — they  should  be  revealed.  So,  changing 
names  and  places — even  substituting  one  or  two  minor 
incidents  for  other  incidents  similar,  but  not  precisely 
the  same — I  shall  tell  you  something  of  this  woman's 
history.  It  may  be  that  some  day  I  shall  have  to  tell 
it  all;  but  that  would  mean  a  novel — and  one  which 
I  am  loath  to  undertake. 

Only  a  few  months  since  I  met  her  again,  this 
woman  that  I  had  last  seen  as  a  young  wife,  in  Mans- 
field, O.  I  had  been  a  small  boy  on  the  previous  oc- 
casion; seventeen  or  eighteen  years  had  passed,  and 
time  had  done  much  with  her;  but  she  had  done 
more  with  herself. 

I  remembered,  in  a  flash,  her  wedding  day.  I  re- 
membered her  as  she  came  up  the  aisle  on  her  proud 
father's  arm.  She  was  tall,  then,  slim,  and  erect, 
with  a  perfectly  proportioned,  willowy  figure,  her 
fine  dark  hair  waving  under  the  filmy  bridal  veil,  her 
brown  eyes  large  and  clear  and  true.  In  Mansfield 
they  used  always  to  say  that  she  had  "style";  but 
here  in  Pittsburgh 

Her  father  had  made  what  was  considered  almost 


HO     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

a  fortune  in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion ;  he  sold  mules 
to  the  government,  and  he  was  the  sort  of  patriot 
that  does  not  mind  cheating  his  country.  The  old 
stock-farmer  evolved  a  scheme  whereby  he  could  sell 
the  same  mule  twice.  Perhaps  it  was  because  he 
repented  that  old  Lozier  took  to  drink.  Anyhow,  he 
did  take  to  it,  and  some  of  her  friends  said  that 
Martha  boasted  of  forcing  the  whisky  upon  him  until 
he  was  sufficiently  mellow  to  surrender  some  extra 
money. 

I  heard  that  Martha's  marriage  was  not  happy. 
Somebody  told  me  that  she  returned  to  Mansfield 
with  her  daughter  and  gave  it  out  that  Conroy,  her 
husband,  was  dead.  Once  she  went  away  to  live  in 
Paris  and  came  back  with  stories  of  her  life  there 
that  rather  shocked  her  old  friends.  She  developed, 
at  any  rate,  a  liking  for  companions  a  great  deal 
younger  than  herself,  and,  until  he  married  a  placid 
nonentity  from  a  local  boarding-school,  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  gossip  concerning  her  affair  with  young 
Billy  Eward,  whose  people,  though  they  lived  in 
Piedmont,  had  always  been  friends  of  the  Loziers. 

Yet  it  was  with  the  still  married  Eward  that  I  met 
her  just  as  she  was  coming  out  of  the  Duquesne  cafe. 

She  was  not  the  girl  that  I  had  seen  married  that 
day  in  Mansfield.  She  was  a  little  stooped  now  and 
what  had  once  been  slimness  was  become  scrawny 
angularity.  Under  the  ridiculous  hat  that  was  de- 
signed for  a  woman  fifteen  years  her  junior,  her  hair, 
dry  and  brittle,  was  touched  with  gray,  and  one  loose 
strand  wandered  vaguely  over  eyes  that  were  dull, 
bloodshot,  and  shifty.  She  had  been  drinking,  and 
her  cheeks  were  flushed,  but  the  rest  of  her  face  was 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  IS  BOHEMIAN       141 

the  color  of  putty  and  the  outer  skin  seemed  separated 
from  the  under. 

"  Mrs.  Conroy?  "  I  ventured,  half  in  doubt  of  her 
identity. 

She  laughed,  displaying  the  faintly  yellowing  teeth 
of  the  woman  that  has  been  cultivating  cigarettes. 

"  Not  that  for  ever  so  long,"  she  said.  "  I'm  Mrs. 
Dominic  now." 

I  did  not  press  the  point ;  I  could  feel  her  mentally 
retreat  from  it. 

"And  are  you  living  in  Pittsburgh?  "  I  asked  of 
Eward. 

"  I  am,"  said  Mrs.  Dominic. 

But  Eward  also  answered. 

"  Oh,  no !  "  he  said.  "  I'm  only  stopping  off  here 
on  my  way  to  New  York  on  business." 

I  reflected  that  Pittsburgh  was  a  strange  stopping 
place  for  a  Piedmont  man  en  route  for  New  York, 
and  then  I  noticed  that  Eward  was  winking  at  me 
over  his  companion's  shoulder.  He  had  a  face  with 
skin  like  sandpaper,  wide  nostrils,  and  eyes  that 
blinked  like  a  satyr's. 

"  Billy  always  stops  to  see  his  old  friends  when 
he's  going  to  New  York  on  business,"  laughed  the 
woman. 

We  chatted  for  a  moment  more  on  the  curb,  and 
then  Eward  plucked  furtively  at  my  coat-tail. 

"  Mrs.  Dominic  has  to  get  away  to  a  tea,"  he 
said.  "  We  mustn't  keep  her  any  longer.  Walk 
along  to  the  Fort  Pitt  with  me  and  have  a  drink." 

The  woman  bowed. 

"At  six  o'clock,  then,"  she  said  to  Eward,  and 
turned  away. 


142     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

The  West  Virginian  gave  a  great  sigh  of  relief. 

"  I  thought  I'd  never  shake  her,"  he  said.  "  She 
can  drink  more  than  any  man  I  know,  but,  once  she 
gets  her  claws  on  you,  she'll  never  let  go." 

"  Then,  of  course,"  I  suggested,  "  you'll  not  get 
into  touch  with  her  this  evening?  " 

"  Of  course  I  will.  I've  got  to.  I'm  afraid  of 
her.  She'd  make  trouble  for  me  with  my  wife.  I've 
been  trying  to  break  this  thing  off  for  three  years 
and  I  haven't  managed  it  yet." 

"What  about  her  own  husband?" 

"  Who?  Dominic?  Oh,  he's  a  good  fellow,  but 
he's  afraid  of  her,  too.  Besides,  he  has  an  affair  of 
his  own;  everybody  but  his  wife  knows  that." 

"What's  his  business?" 

"  His  business  is  being  Mrs.  Dominic's  husband, 
and  that's  trouble  enough  for  one  man.  He  would 
have  made  a  good  lawyer  once,  but  Mrs.  D.  taught 
him  to  drink.  Now  his  practice  is  a  joke.  He 
comes  of  good  people,  but  they  couldn't  stand  for  his 
marriage,  so  Martha  deals  him  out  a  share  of  the 
allowance  that  her  father  sends  her,  and,  of  course, 
poor  Eddie  can't  quarrel  with  his  meal  ticket." 

Eward  told  me  more.  Some  of  it  I  could  not  at 
the  time  believe,  but  much  of  it  I  afterward  found  to 
be  true  not  only  of  Mrs.  Dominic  in  this  city,  but  of 
other  women  like  her  in  other  cities.  Martha's  pas- 
sions had  devoured  her,  but  still  continued  to  flame. 
While  she  maintained  upon  one  hand  the  fiction  of  an 
acquaintance  with  the  extreme  and  ragged  fringes 
of  "  Society,"  on  the  other  she  indulged  without  stint 
a  craving  for  making  younger  women  into  what  she 
had  herself  become. 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  IS  BOHEMIAN       143 

"  She  has  three  divorces  now  to  her  credit,"  said 
Eward,  "  and  I  know  of  two  girls  on  the  streets  that 
would  never  have  been  there  if  they  hadn't  fallen  in 
with  Martha." 

"Why  does  she  do  it?" 

"I  don't  know;  but  I've  met  several  like  her. 
All  people  that  are  bad  like  to  think  all  other  people 
are  bad.  Well,  Martha  doesn't  stop  at  thinking  it; 
she  shows  'em  the  way  and  provides  the  men." 

"In  cold  blood?" 

"No;  that  wouldn't  work,  and  she  likes  to  play 
the  long  game.  That's  her  interest  in  life.  She's 
the  chief  figure  in  a  little  club  she  got  up — a  club 
that  calls  itself  bohemian — and  it's  there  that  she 
generally  operates.  Then  she'll  take  up  young  girls, 
mostly  from  out  of  town — girls  that  are  studying  at 
the  Institute,  or  working  and  living  by  themselves, 
and  lonesome  girls  and  dissatisfied  girls — and  she'll 
be  a  real  friend  to  them  for  just  so  long,  and,  before 
they  know  it,  they're  on  their  way." 

"Hasn't  she  any  regrets?" 

Eward  laughed — a  short,  ugly  laugh. 

"You  don't  know  Martha,"  he  answered:  "she 
says  they're  free  agents." 

"  But  surely " 

"  Oh,  sometimes  something  happens  to  upset  her 
a  bit.  Something  happened  this  afternoon.  That's 
why  she's  early  lighting  up  to-day.  She  generally 
doesn't  light  up  very  much  before  five-thirty." 

We  were  seated  at  a  cafe  table  now.  He  leaned 
back  and  put  a  match  to  his  cigar. 

"  I'll  tell  you  how  it  was,"  he  said.  "  I  got  it 
straight  from  her." 


144     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  Do  you  think  you  ought  to  tell  me  ?  " 

Eward  flushed  quickly. 

"  I  think,"  he  said,  "  that  the  whole  world  ought 
to  know.  Just  you  listen  for  five  minutes  and  see  if 
you  don't  agree  with  me.  Mind  you,  Martha's  only 
one  of  a  type." 

He  blew  a  long  ring  of  blue  smoke. 

"  Out  in  Cleveland,"  he  began,  "  there  was  a  little 
girl  named  Mervin — Dolly  Mervin.  She  was  good  to 
look  at  and  pleasant  to  talk  to,  but  she  wasn't  a  howl- 
ing beauty  and  she  wasn't  a  genius — just  a  nice,  good 
sort  of  girl. 

"  As  I  see  it,  the  fault  of  the  thing  was  Martha 
and  nobody  else.  Nothing  would  have  gone  wrong  if 
it  hadn't  been  for  Martha.  Still,  Dolly's  parents,  as 
I  happen  to  know,  didn't  altogether  understand  their 
daughter,  and  I  dare  say  they  made  home  anything 
but  lively.  They'd  married  late  in  life  and  they'd 
forgotten  their  own  childhood.  Then,  too,  they 
hadn't  any  children  but  Dolly,  so  she  didn't  get  the 
benefit  of  their  experience  with  an  elder  brother  or 
sister  and  she  didn't  have  any  brother  or  sister  for 
company. 

"  Fact  is,  she  didn't  have  any  company  at  all. 
Her  parents  couldn't  see  why  she  needed  any.  They 
were  home  every  night;  they  considered  each  other 
good  company,  and,  of  course,  they  thought  that 
Dolly  ought  to  concur  in  their  opinion.  You  know 
the  sort  of  a  household  it  was;  the  land's  full 
of  'em. 

"  I  don't  mean  that  Dolly  didn't  have  friends  at 
the  public  school,  or  that  she  didn't  once  in  a  while  go 
out  to  a  friend's  house.  She  did;  but  she  didn't  go 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  IS  BOHEMIAN       145 

anything  like  as  much  as  she  should  have  gone,  and 
she  hated  to  be  under  social  obligations,  because  her 
own  home  was  kept  so  quiet  that  she  wasn't  allowed 
to  repay  'em.  So  most  of  the  time  she  just  stopped 
indoors  and  practiced  on  the  piano. 

"  That  sort  of  thing  went  on  till  she  had  graduated 
from  the  high  school.  She  hadn't  been  a  brilliant 
student,  so  she  was  nineteen  years  old  at  that  time, 
and  I  give  you  my  word  that  she  was  absolutely  ig- 
norant of  at  least  half  of  the  fundamental  facts  of 
her  own  make-up.  What  she  did  have  in  place  of  any 
such  knowledge  was  a  tremendous  desire  to  get  out  of 
the  life  she  had  been  leading,  to  see  real  life,  to  go 
about,  to  be  like  other  people  and  to  be  among 
them. 

"  That  and  her  piano.  She  showed  a  real  talent 
for  music.  She  loved  music  and  wanted  to  make  it 
her  profession.  I  don't  know  enough  about  such 
things  to  say  for  sure  whether  she'd  have  made  a  con- 
cert soloist  of  herself  or  only  a  piano  teacher;  but  I 
remember  that  one  of  the  big  guns  in  the  Pittsburgh 
Orchestra  told  me  that  she'd  have  a  fine  chance  if  she 
could  only  get  proper  instruction.  Anyhow,  music 
was  her  chance,  and  she  worked  it  until  her  father 
agreed  to  send  her  here  to  study  and  told  her  that  if 
she  did  well  he'd  try  to  raise  enough  cash  to  give  her 
a  course  in  Europe. 

"Well,  Dolly  <fame  to  Pittsburgh  and  worked 
hard,  and  because  she'd  never  had  an  opportunity  to 
learn  how  to  make  friends,  the  first  part  of  her  stay 
here  was  even  more  lonely  than  those  nineteen  years 
in  Cleveland  had  been.  She  just  ate  her  heart  out 
until  she  met  a  fellow-student  that  had  recently  been 


i46     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

taken  up  by  Mrs.  Dominic — by  Martha — and  so 
Martha  took  up  Dolly. 

"  It  was  Martha's  old  game.  Martha  had  Dolly 
to  tea  at  her  little  home — eminently  respectable,  you 
know,  with  a  few  casual  references  to  some  swells 
that  Martha  always  pretends  are  intimate  acquaint- 
ances of  hers,  and  with  a  light  word  or  two  about  one 
young  man  or  another — myself,  most  likely,  among 
them — and  theater-parties  and  excursions  and  gay 
dinners.  Precisely  enough  to  make  Dolly's  eyes 
sparkle  and  to  whet  her  appetite. 

"  That  sort  of  thing  was  kept  up  for  a  while,  and 
then  the  Dominies  had  Dolly  to  their  *  bohemian ' 
club.  Of  course  it  wasn't  bohemian.  The  essence  of 
bohemianism  is  unconsciousness;  the  minute  you  try 
to  become  a  bohemian,  you  cease  to  be  one — you  be- 
come something  else  that  I  won't  name — and  the 
Dominies  always  tried  hard.  But  Dolly  didn't  know 
this.  She  didn't  know  that  the  soup  was  poor,  the 
lobster  a  cold-storage  crustacean,  the  lamb  aged  mut- 
ton, and  the  claret  vinegar.  All  she  knew  was  that 
there  were  lots  of  lights  and  lots  of  people  and  that 
the  lights  were  bright  and  that  all  the  people  seemed 
happy  and  kindly. 

"  '  Let's  have  a  cocktail,'  said  Martha,  as  they 
sat  down.  '  I'm  nearly  dead  for  one.' 

"  '  I  don't  think  I  care  for  any,'  said  Dolly. 

"'Why  not?' 

"'*  Well,  you  see,  father  never  approved  of  drink- 
ing.' 

Martha  raised  her  eyebrows  in  that  way  she  has 
of  showing  incredible  scorn. 

"'So  you've  never  tasted  a  cocktail?' 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  IS  BOHEMIAN      147 

"  *  No/ 

"  '  Te-he ! '  laughed  Martha.  '  What  do  you  think 
of  that,  Eddie?' 

"  And  poor,  dough-faced  Eddie  said,  *  Ho-ho ! ' — 
as  he  was  expected  to  do. 

"  '  It's  nonsense ! '  said  Martha.  *  It  might  be  all 
right  while  you're  a  little  girl  at  home;  but  here  we're 
all  grown  up  and  bohemian.  Don't  you  think  you're 
old  enough  to  take  care  of  yourself?  ' 

"  So  Dolly  took  the  cocktail.  She  took  some  of 
the  red  vinegar,  too,  and  pretty  soon  her  shyness  fell 
from  her,  and  she  was  as  gay  as  any  of  the 
others,  and  some  of  Martha's  tired-eyed  young  boy 
friends  were  attentive,  and  Dolly  had  a  splendid 
time. 

"  On  her  next  visit  to  the  club,  Martha  offered 
her  a  cigarette,  but  Dolly  hesitated. 

"  *  Now,  don't  be  a  goose,  dear,'  said  Martha. 
1  The  cocktail  and  the  claret  didn't  hurt  you,  did 
they?' 

"  '  No-o-o,'  admitted  Dolly. 

"  *  Well,  then,  a  cigarette  certainly  won't.  Why 
shouldn't  you  smoke?  Where's  the  harm  in  it?  We 
all  smoke.  Women  all  smoke  nowadays.' 

"  You  see  the  process.  The  trouble  with  Dolly 
was  that  she  didn't  see  it.  Martha  just  shoved  her 
gently  along,  week  by  week,  enjoying  the  game,  while 
Dolly  was  always  thinking  that  she  was  seeing  life 
at  last  and  that  Mrs.  Dominic  was  c  simply  lovely ' 
to  her. 

"  When  Martha  judged  that  the  time  was  ripe,  she 
got  Eddie  to  propose  a  trip.  It  was  a  great  idea! 
They  would  organize  a  little  party,  run  across  the 


148     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

state  to  Philadelphia  on  Friday  night  and  go  down 
to  Atlantic  City  for  Saturday  and  Sunday. 

"*  Won't  it  cost  a  great  deal?'  faltered  Dolly. 

11 '  Yes,  it  would  cost  a  little  bit  of  money.' 

"  *  Then  I'm  afraid  I  can't  go,'  said  Dolly,  who 
had  always  wanted  to  see  the  ocean. 

"  Martha  considered. 

"'Have  you  enough  for  carfare?'  she  asked. 
'  *  I've  saved  a  little  of  my  allowance.     I  think 
I  have  enough  for  that.' 

"  '  Well,  then,  we'll  attend  to  the  hotel  expenses. 
I  tell  you  what  we'll  do,  Eddie.  We'll  get  Willis 
Sadler  to  be  the  host.  He  gave  us  a  party  down  there 
last  year.  He's  got  lots  of  money  and  he  always 
wants  a  good  time.  Besides,  he's  in  Harrisburg  now.' 

"  They  arranged  it  that  way.  Sadler,  whom  Dolly 
had  never  seen  before,  but  who  seemed  to  be  very 
intimate  with  Martha,  met  them  on  the  way.  He 
wired  to  a  big  hotel  for  rooms,  and  they  all  had  a 
long  dinner  in  Atlantic  City  along  the  ocean  front, 
with  cocktails  and  champagne — and  highballs  to  fol- 
low. Then,  somehow,  Sadler  and  Dolly  lost  the 
Dominies  in  the  crowd  on  the  board-walk,  and,  when 
they  got  to  the  hotel,  the  girl,  in  a  placid  haze,  found 
that  Martha  and  Eddie  had  been  given  rooms  on  the 
other  side  of  the  house  and  that  Sadler's  room  com- 
municated with  hers. 

"  That  started  things.  The  girl  considered  herself 
lost;  her  whole  training  of  silence  was  of  the  kind 
that  implicitly  teaches  that,  once  the  great  step  is 
taken,  there  is  no  means  of  turning  back.  She 
went  ahead.  At  last  the  music  conservatory  got  on 
to  it  and  fired  her.  Meantime,  Martha  had  had 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  IS  BOHEMIAN       149 

enough  of  her  company.     Dolly  was  afraid  to  go 
home — so  she  went  to  the  dogs." 

Eward  stopped  in  his  story.  He  threw  away  the 
butt  of  his  cigar. 

"Is  that  all?"  I  asked. 

"  Not  quite,"  he  said.  "  You  saw  how  Martha 
was  tanking  up  this  afternoon?  Well,  she's  afraid 
that  Eddie's  cousin's  political  pull  may  not  be  strong 
enough." 

"  I  don't  follow  you." 

"  Eddie  has  a  cousin  in  politics  here." 

"Yes?" 

"  Well,  this  afternoon  a  house  was  pinched,  and 
Dolly  was  among  the  inmates." 

"She's  locked  up?" 

"  Sure  she  is." 

"  And  Martha's  depending  on  Eddie's  cousin  to  get 
her  out?" 

"  Not  much  I  Martha'd  like  her  to  stay  there  for- 
ever. You  see,  there  was  a  preliminary  hearing,  and 
Dolly  opened  up  and  told  the  whole  story  of  how  she 
started  wrong — and  the  names  of  the  people  that 
started  her.  What's  making  Martha  sick  is  the  dan- 
ger of  publicity.  She's  got  Eddie's  cousin  on  the 
job  of  using  his  political  pull  to  keep  the  papers 
quiet." 

"Can  he  do  it?" 

Eward  looked  at  his  watch. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said.  "'  Of  course  that  talk 
about  Martha  having  a  tea-engagement  was  bluff. 
She's  at  her  home,  and  she  made  me  promise  to  call 
her  up  at  six,  so's  she  could  tell  me  if  there  was  any 


150     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

news.  It's  a  quarter  after  now.  She'll  raise  Cain  be- 
cause I'm  late — she  always  does." 

He  went  to  a  telephone-booth.  In  a  few  minutes 
he  returned,  smiling  bitterly. 

"  It's  all  right,"  he  said. 

"The  papers  will  keep  quiet?" 

"  Yes,  more's  the  pity." 

"  So  Martha's  had  another  escape?  " 

"  She  has ;  and  she's  as  happy  as  a  lark." 

"  And  what  about  Dolly  " 

"  Oh — Dolly  hanged  herself  in  her  cell  a  half-hour 
ago." 


XIII 

THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED 

THE  warden  looked  up  from  his  desk. 
"  What  prisoner  do  you  want  to  see?  "  he 
asked. 

"  Bertha  Dixon,"  I  answered. 

"Why?" 

"  She  sent  for  me." 

"  You'll  need  an  order." 

I  produced  my  order. 

The  warden  read  it  with  puckered  brows.  He  ap- 
peared for  the  moment  to  suspect  me  of  forgery. 

"  This  seems  correct,"  he  said. 

"  I  have  every  reason  to  believe  the  district  at- 
torney was  quite  sane  when  he  gave  it  me." 

"  All  right.  Only  it's  very  unusual — very  unusual, 
indeed."  He  pressed  a  button.  A  turnkey  entered. 
"  Take  this  man  up  to  see  J  709,"  said  the  warden. 

We  climbed  the  iron  stairs.  We  turned  down  one 
corridor  and  up  another — a  maze,  as  it  seemed  to  me, 
of  straight,  long  corridors — our  feet  ringing  on  the 
iron  flags.  Except  for  that  noise,  the  place  was  as 
quiet  as  a  tomb.  It  was  as  white  as  a  tomb,  too. 
But  it  was  oppressive  with  the  sense  of  crowded  dumb 
life. 

We  went  along  more  corridors — more  stairs — more 
corridors.  We  passed  cell  after  cell — row  upon  row 
of  cells.  The  prison,  from  the  outside,  had  appeared 
so  small;  now  I  thought  there  was  no  limit  to  it. 


152     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

At  last  one  corridor  ended  abruptly  in  a  studded 
portal.  This  the  turnkey  unlocked  and  opened.  He 
thrust  in  his  head. 

"  It's  all  right,  Charley,"  he  said.  "  Gentleman 
with  an  order  to  see  J  709." 

He  pushed  me  ahead  of  him  and  clanged  the  door 
behind  me.  The  bolts  shot  into  place  with  a  great, 
metallic  clash.  I  was  in  another  corridor,  with  cells 
on  one  side  only.  Two  more  turnkeys  were  seated 
at  a  table,  playing  cards,  just  in  front  of  one  of  the 
cells.  Ahead  of  me  was  another  door — a  small, 
rather  inoffensive-looking  door.  I  knew  now  where  I 
was.  That  other  door  led  to  the  electric  chair;  the 
two  turnkeys  were  the  death  watch;  I  was  in  the 
condemned  cells. 

J  709  was  under  sentence  of  death.  She  sat  on  the 
iron  bed  in  her  narrow,  whitewashed  cell.  Her 
hands  were  clasped  in  the  folds  of  her  black  dress, 
on  her  lap.  She  had  beautiful  hands.  I  have  never 
seen  hands  more  beautiful.  They  were  narrow,  long, 
and  very  white.  The  nails  were  pink  and  naturally 
almond-shaped.  From  the  wrist  to  the  end  of  the 
middle  finger  the  lines  were  perfect.  There  was  the 
faint  tracery  of  blue  veins  on  the  backs  of  the  hands. 
They  had  an  appearance  of  extreme  delicacy,  and  yet 
— I  can  think  of  no  other  way  to  put  it — they  gave 
you,  also,  the  impression  of  great  strength. 

Bertha  Dixon's  figure  was  straight  and  slim  and 
supple.  She  had,  even  in  her  frequent  gestures,  a 
grace  of  movement  that  was  like  music :  it  was  spon-- 
taneous  mathematics.  Her  face  was  oval  and,  with 
the  prison  pallor  on  it,  spiritual.  She  had  a  calm, 
broad  forehead,  and  level,  steady,  understanding,  and 


THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED          153 

forgiving  gray  eyes.  She  had  always-strangely  re- 
minded me  of  Leonardo's  Mona  Lisa.  She  reminded 
me  more  than  ever  of  it  now.  This  was  the  woman 
that,  on  the  morrow,  was  going  to  die. 


"  You  sent  for  me?  "  I  said  awkwardly.  I  did  not 
know  what  to  say.  "  It  was  kind  of  you  to  think  of 
me." 

I  don't  know  what  I  meant  by  that  last  sentence; 
but  I  recall  saying  it,  and  then  standing  there,  help- 
less, before  her. 

"  Yes,"  she  said  quite  calmly.  "  I  wanted  to  see 
you.  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you.  Don't  call  it  kind  of 
me  to  send  for  you.  It  was  kind  of  you,  rather,  to 
have  come.  Won't  you  sit  down?" 

She  motioned  toward  the  single  chair  in  her  cell, 
with  the  air  of  a  woman  that  receives  a  caller  in  her 
drawing-room.  I  sat  down. 

"  Well,"  she  said — it  was  quite  as  if  she  were  dis- 
cussing an  abstract  problem — "  it  is  nearly  finished." 

I  was  possessed  of  a  devil  that  bade  me  give  her 
lying  comfort. 

"  Don't  say  that,"  I  platitudinously  faltered. 
"  While  there's  life  there's  hope.  Perhaps  the  Gov- 


She   smiled. 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  said.  "  I  hope  not.  I  sincerely 
hope  not.  Indeed,  I'm  quite  sure  there  isn't  a  chance 
in  the  world.  And  I  don't  want  that  chance." 

"  You  don't  mean  that  you  want " 

I  couldn't  finish  the  sentence,  but  she  finished  it 
for  me. 


154     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  To  die?  "  said  she.  "  Why  not?  My  life  was 
broken  at  its  beginning.  Somebody  broke  it.  Then 
I  delivered  the  final  blow  myself.  Anything  more 
would  be  anti-climax.  I  have  filled  all  the  space  that 
was  assigned  me.  I  have  completed  things.  I  don't 
want  to  be  a  patched  vase." 

"  Don't  speak  so !  "  I  pleaded. 

"  Why  not?  It  is  the  truth,  and  surely  if  one  is 
ever  to  tell  the  truth,  this  is  one  of  the  rare  occasions. 
You  wonder  why  I  sent  for  you,  don't  you?  " 

"  If  there  is  anything  that  I  can  do — anything — I 
sha'n't  wonder  for  an  instant." 

"You  can  listen.  Thank  you;  but  you  can  only 
listen.  After  all,  that  is  a  good  deal.  When  one 
reaches  the  moment  that  I  have  reached,  a  good  lis- 
tener is  one's  best  friend.  You  asked  me,  that  night 
at  Sharkey's,  to  tell  you  my  story.  I  wouldn't. 
The  time  wasn't  ripe.  But  now  it  is.  I've  waited; 
I've  remembered.  Now  the  time  is  ripe — and  so  I 
have  sent  for  you.  You  put  me  in  your  debt — deeply 
m  your  debt — by  coming.  Listen." 


This  is  what  she  told  me — the  girl  that  was  going 
to  die: 

"  I  was  born  into  what  is  called  a  good  family.  I 
believe  they  all  say  that — all  the  women  that  are 
what  I  am;  but  as  I  am  to  go  out  of  the  world  to- 
morrow, there  is  really  no  reason  for  me  to  lie  as  to 
the  manner  of  my  coming  into  it.  My  father  had 
some  money  and  a  great  deal  of  family  pride.  He 
was  a  banker  in  a  rather  large  town  in  Maryland,  and 
simtil  I  was  nineteen  I  was  what  is  called  well  edu- 


THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED          155 

cated.  I  was  brought  up  to  everything  I  wanted. 
I  was  expected  by  my  father  to  be  the  best  dressed 
girl  in  the  place.  When  riding  was  the  fashion,  1 
had  the  finest  pony;  when  motors  came  in,  he  bought 
me  my  own  runabout.  I  didn't  have  to  ask  for 
things;  I  had  only  to  say  that  I  liked  them,  and  they 
were  bought  for  me.  It  was  impressed  on  me — not 
by  words,  perhaps,  but  certainly  by  the  far  more 
effective  method  of  example — that  all  this  was  as  it 
should  be;  that  it  was  almost  a  part  of  the  Divine 
plan  that  my  people  had  always  been  the  people  of 
our  town  and  should  always  so  remain. 

"  Then,  quite  without  warning — father  never 
talked  of  business  with  the  family,  and  even  now  I 
have  no  idea  how  it  all  happened — came  the  smash. 
So  far  as  ever  I  could  make  out,  father  woke  up  one 
morning  as  well-to-do  as  ever,  and  went  to  bed  that 
night — if  he  did  go  to  bed,  poor  dear! — a  ruined 
man.  Immediately  everything  changed.  Perhaps  I 
had  better  say  that  everything  went.  The  horses 
went,  the  carriages,  the  two  motors,  the  house,  joy, 
contentment — they  seemed  to  me  to  all  go  together. 
Everything  but  pride.  Somehow,  father,  who  hated 
farming,  retained  a  little  farm — it  was  probably 
mortgaged — on  the  outskirts  of  the  town.  We  went 
there  to  live.  At  any  rate,  we  went  there  to  remain 
alive. 

"  But  we  took  our  pride  along.  Our  pride  ap- 
peared to  grow  in  inverse  ratio  as  everything  else 
shrank.  We  were  still  the —  Well,  Dixon  natu- 
rally isn't  my  real  name,  but  we'll  call  it  that.  We 
were  still  The  Dixons.  Mother  had  become  a  nerv- 
ous invalid  from  the  shock.  Father,  since  he  couldn't 


156     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

show  himself  '  properly ' — that  was  his  way  of  put- 
ting it — would  scarcely  ever  leave  the  farm.  He 
soon  made  it  clear  that,  for  a  similar  reason,  he 
didn't  want  me,  his  nineteen-year-old  daughter,  to 
leave  it  either. 

"There  were  dances;  but  I  wasn't  allowed  to  go 
to  them,  because  I  couldn't  go  '  properly.'  There 
were  picnics;  but  I  had  to  stay  at  home,  because  I 
couldn't  go  in  the  clothes  that  I  could  once  have  gone 
in.  Because  we  could  no  longer  afford  to  subscribe 
to  the  tennis  club,  I  mustn't  put  myself  under  obli- 
gations to  my  inferiors  by  accepting  their  invitations 
to  play  there.  I  mustn't  accept  any  invitations,  in- 
deed, because  I  was  in  no  position  to  return  hospital- 
ity. Visitors  weren't  welcome  at  the  farm;  we  did 
not  want  our  poverty  spied  upon. 

"  All  this,  remember,  happened  to  a  girl  that  had 
been  sent  to  expensive  schools  and  taught  to  cultivate 
expensive  tastes.  Don't  think  that  I  am  blaming  my 
father.  I  am  blaming  nothing  but  the  state  of  af- 
fairs that  made  him  possible — and  me.  I  always 
loved  my  father,  even  when  I  couldn't  sympathize 
with  his  point  of  view ;  and  as  for  all  other  personal 
animosities,  I  ended  them  with  the  act  that  brought 
me — here. 

"  I  had  been  engaged  to  be  married.  I  had  even 
been  in  love  with  my  fiance.  We  were  both  young, 
but  my  father  had  approved,  because  the  man  in  the 
case,  though  poor,  came  of  a  family  that  was  almost 
as  good — oh,  not  quite,  of  course!  that  was  impos- 
sible !  but  almost  as  good — as  ours.  When  the  crash 
came,  the  first  thing  I  thought  about  was  Jack.  I 
thought  he  would  come  and  console  me.  But  he 


THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED          157 

didn't.  He  didn't  put  in  an  appearance  for  two  weeks 
and  more — not  until  we  had  established  ourselves  and 
the  new  order  of  things  at  the  farm. 

"  '  He'll  not  come  at  all,'  said  my  father. 

"  I  almost  cried. 

"  '  He  will  come  I  '  I  said.  '  Don't  be  so  unjust  to 
him !  He  doesn't  like  to  trespass  on  our  sorrow.' 

"  *  He  doesn't  want  to  share  our  poverty,'  my 
father  corrected. 

"  But  I  was  angry  now. 

"  '  You  don't  know  him,'  I  said.  '  I  do.  Just  you 
wait.' 

"So  we  waited — for  two  weeks. 

"  Then  Jack  appeared. 

"  The  minute  I  saw  him  I  knew  that  father  had 
been  right. 

"  Jack  talked  all  around  the  subject,  but  he  came 
to  it  at  last.  He  pointed  out  that  he  had  nothing  but 
his  salary  in  the  other  bank — the  only  remaining  bank 
in  the  town;  that  this  was  not  enough  to  support  us 
both  in  the  manner  in  which  our  positions  demanded 
that  we  should  be  supported;  that  we  had  both  gone 
into  our  engagement  OR  an  hypothesis  that  had  been 
shattered,  and  that,  in  short,  we  were  at  the  end  of  it. 

"  I  blamed  him  then,  but  I  don't  now.  Now  I  see 
that  he  was  only  telling  a  hard  truth.  If  we  had 
married  on  his  prospects,  we  should  both  have  been 
wretchedly  unhappy.  As  it  was,  he  married  the 
daughter  of  a  newer  but  more  prosperous  family, 
and  only  one  of  us  was  unhappy.  Jack  was  right. 
I  went  through  the  period  of  rebellion  and  sank  into 
the  period  of  solitary  despair. 

"  Then  George  put  in  an  appearance.     He  was 


158     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

the  son  of  one  of  the  town's  minor  merchants,  and  so 
he  hadn't  moved  very  much  in  what  we  used  to  call 
Our  Set.  Besides,  he  was  nearly  thirty  years  old.  But 
now  everything  was  topsy-turvy  with  me.  When  he 
met  me  one  day  in  a  lane  near  the  farm  and  was  just 
as  respectful  as  he  had  ever  been — when  he  treated 
me  as  I  had  begun  to  forget  I  could  be  treated — I 
came  slowly  to  like  him. 

"  We  met  often.  I  didn't  tell  father  about  it, 
because  father  would  have  said  that  George  was 
beneath  me;  but  I  came  to  care  more  and  more  for 
George.  I  knew  that  people  used  to  say  that  George 
didn't  have  a  very  good  reputation,  but  I  judged 
him — if  I  really  could  be  said  to  judge  him  at  all — 
only  by  what  I  saw.  In  the  end  he  made  love  to  me, 
and  I  was  so  utterly  desolate  and  lonely  and  so  hun- 
gry for  all  the  happiness  I  had  been  used  to  that  I 
thought  I  loved  him. 

"  Father  found  it  out.  He  found  it  out,  through 
the  gossip  of  some  farmhand,  on  the  afternoon  of  a 
day  on  the  evening  of  which  I  had  one  of  my  usual 
appointments  to  meet  George.  There  was  an  awful 
scene.  Father  accused  me  of  the  lowest  sort  of  things 
— things  that  I  had  hardly  known  ever  existed — and 
I  went  to  my  bedroom  and  cried  myself  to  sleep. 
But  that  night  I  stole  out  of  the  farmhouse  and  kept 
my  appointment.  I  told  George  everything — every- 
thing. 

"  He  comforted  me.  He  said  he  loved  me  better 
than  anything  else  in  the  world.  Of  course,  he  said, 
he  had  no  decent  income  and  marriage  looked  very 
dim  and  distant;  but,  after  all,  we  were  engaged. 
We  had  been  judged  guilty  (without  a  fair  trial) 


THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED          159 

of  what  hadn't  so  much  as  entered  our  heads — and  all 
the  time  (so  George  put  it)  we  were  just  as  good  as 
married. 

"  I  see  now  that  what  happened  was  what,  given 
the  circumstances,  was  simply  inevitable.  But  the  re- 
sult! I  needn't  tell  you  what  I  went  through  when 
at  last  I  came  to  guess  it — the  doubts  and  fears  and 
shame.  There  was  a  terrible  meeting  with  George — 
terrible!  I  had  been  hanging  over  the  edge  of  a 
precipice  for  weeks  and  weeks,  and  the  only  thing 
I  had  to  cling  to  was  my  faith  in  George. 

" '  I  don't  believe  I'm  responsible  for  it,'  said 
George.  '  It's  some  other  fellow.' 

"  I  think  I  nearly  fainted.  I  don't  know  what  I 
began  by  saying.  I  remember  all  sorts  of  anger  and 
tears,  protestations  and  accusations.  But  I  know 
that,  at  last,  I  said  I  should  go  straight  home,  write 
a  letter  to  father  telling  him  about  George,  and  then 
jump  into  the  pond.  I  meant  it,  too. 

"  I  suppose  that  scared  him.     I  don't  know. 

"  '  Look  here !  '  he  said.  '  You  must  see  that  we 
can't  get  married;  we'd  have  nothing  to  live  on.' 

"  I  remembered  Jack.  I  said  I  supposed  George 
was  correct. 

"  '  So  that  what  you  want,'  said  George,  *  is  to  be 
saved  from  any  disgrace.' 

"  Somehow  or  other  he  got  me  to  agree  with  him. 
He  said  he  knew  a  doctor  in  Baltimore.  It  may  have 
been  a  doctor.  I  never  knew  for  sure.  He  said  the 
thing  was  perfectly  simple. 

"  Of  course  I  was  crazy.  I  was  mad  with  mental 
agony.  I  honestly  have  only  the  most  fragmentary 
recollections  of  that  trip  to  Baltimore  and  my  return 


160     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

to  the  farm.  I  know  now  that  hundreds  of  women 
die  every  year  from  such  things;  I  only  knew  then 
that  the  day  after  I  got  back  to  the  farm  I  began  to 
undergo  tortures  that  were  beyond  anything  I  had 
thought  the  human  body  could  survive  and  that  left 
me  a  physical  wreck  for  the  rest  of  my  life. 

"  I  wanted  to  die.  I  prayed  to  die.  But  I  didn't 
die.  I  got  well.  And,  the  day  that  I  left  my 
room,  I  found  out  that  father  knew  what  had 
happened. 

"  I  said  I  was  crazy  before.  If  I  was,  the  form 
of  my  mania  changed  now.  I  called  up  George  on 
the  telephone — he  hadn't  so  much  as  telephoned  to 
find  out  how  I  was  getting  on  the  whole  time  I'd 
been  ill — and  I  told  him  I  wanted  to  see  him.  I 
could  tell  by  his  voice  that  he  had  detected  in  mine 
something  that  frightened  him. 

"  '  I'm  too  busy,'  he  said.  '  Wait  till  to-night. 
Wait  till  some  other  time.' 

"  '  Not  a  minute,'  I  said.    *  I  want  to  see  you  now.' 

"  I  went  upstairs — tottering — to  get  my  hat.  As 
I  came  down,  my  mother  was  at  the  door  of  her 
room. 

"  '  Where  are  you  going?  '  she  asked. 

"  '  I'm  going  to  see  George  Livsey,'  I  told  her. 

"  She  flung  up  her  hands.  I'll  never  forget  her 
face. 

"  '  Then  it's  true ! '  she  said.  '  Your  father 
wouldn't  tell  me — but  it's  true ! ' 

"  She  dropped  over  in  a  faint.  I  telephoned  for 
the  doctor,  and  as  soon  as  he  came  he  said  it  was 
serious. 

"  '  Heart  disease,'  he  said. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED          161 

"  But  when  we  had  made  mother  comfortable  and 
the  nurse  had  come,  I  went  to  see  George. 

"  *  I  am  nineteen  years  old,'  I  said,  '  and  you  are 
thirty.  You  have  ruined  my  life.  Unless  we  are 
married — I  know  you  don't  care  for  me,  but  you  can 
be  honest  and  stick  to  your  bargain — you  can  be  a 
man  if  you  try.  I  know  I  don't  care  for  you,  but 
you  can  make  me  care  for  you  if  you'll  be  straight 
with  me,  and  you'll  never  have  any  cause  to  complain 
of  me,  anyhow.' 

' '  And  what  do  you  want?  '  he  asked. 

"  '  I  want  you  to  marry  me,'  I  answered. 

"  He  started  to  smile. 

1  '  Don't  laugh !  '  I  warned  him.  *  I  want  to  save 
my  mother's  life  and  my  father's  brain  and  my  own 
reputation.' 

4  You  haven't  any  reputation  left,'  he  said.  *  The 
whole  town  knows  what  was  the  matter  with  you.' 

4  The  whole  town,'  I  said,  *  is  the  sort  of  a 
town  that  believes  reputations  can  be  repaired  by 
marriage.' 

"  '  We'd  be  too  poor.' 

1  *  I'd  be  not  much  poorer  than  I  am  now,  and  I'd 
help  you  all  I  could.  We  should  make  out  some- 
how.' 

"  He  begged  for  a  day  in  which  to  think  it  over. 

"  '  You  may  have  it,'  I  told  him;  *  but  if  you  kill 
my  mother  and  father  and  don't  try  to  make  up  for 
what  you  have  done,  I'll — I'll  kill  you,  George.' 

"  I  remember  I  said  it  very  quietly. 

"  That  night  my  mother  died  and  the  next  morn- 
ing my  father  shot  himself.  When  it  was  over  and  I 
had  a  little  time  to  think,  I  tried  to  find  George.  He 


162     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

had  left  town.     They  thought  he  had  gone  to  New 
York.    At  any  rate,  he  had  run  away. 


"  Well,  I  came  to  New  York,  too.  The  creditors 
got  the  farm;  the  insurance  had  all  gone  in  loans  and 
things;  there  was  practically  nothing  left  for  me.  I 
was  almost  penniless;  even  if  I  had  wanted  to  stay 
in  our  town,  it  would  have  been  about  impossible 
for  me  to  do  so,  because  the  gossips  had  guessed  at 
the  truth  about  me,  and  where  I  wasn't  an  object  of 
the  scorn  that  is  either  pitying  or  horrified,  I  was  the 
object  of  that  kind  of  scorn  which  prompts  a  common 
type  of  male  animal  to  offer  an  insulting  companion- 
ship. So,  I  say,  I  went  to  New  York  with  just  a 
few  dollars  between  me  and  nothing. 

"  I  had  found  out  from  some  of  George's  friends 
about  where  he  was.  He  had  a  place  as  clerk  in  a 
Broadway  haberdasher's  shop.  I  think  I  was  quite 
mad.  Anyhow,  I  went  to  the  shop  to  see  him.  He 
was  sorting  a  lot  of  neckties  when  I  came  in,  and  he 
nearly  dropped  them  when  he  saw  me.  I  dare  say 
that  by  this  time  I  looked  like  a  ghost. 

"  I  said,  *  Good-morning,  George.' 

"  He  got  quite  white. 

*  Keep  your  voice  down,'  he  said.  *  Somebody'll 
hear  you.  Do  you  want  me  to  lose  my  job?  What 
do  you  mean  by  following  me  to  New  York?  What 
do  you  mean  by  coming  to  my  place  of  business? ' 

"  '  What  did  you  mean,'  I  asked,  '  by  running 
away  ? ' 

"  I  repeated  to  him  what  I  had  said  at  our  last 
meeting.  He  absolutely  discarded  me.  He  said  I 


THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED          163 

had  been  a  bad  woman  before  ever  he  knew  me 
well — he  knew  that  was  a  lie — and  he  literally  or- 
dered me  into  the  street.  I  must  have  spoken  loudly. 
I  don't  know.  Anyhow,  the  proprietor  of  the  shop 
came  up,  and  as  I  went  out  I  heard  George  telling 
his  employer  that  I  was  a  low  woman  that  he  had 
met  at  a  Fourteenth  Street  cafe  and  that  I  had  been 
trying  to  extort  money  from  him. 

"  Although  this  was  the  last  insult,  it  also  gave 
me  an  idea.  I  had  nearly  tried  to  kill  George  in  that 
shop,  but  I  hadn't  the  courage — or  what  I  then  called 
courage.  Now  the  thing  that  he  had  said  to  his 
employer  suggested  how  I  could  keep  from  starving 
— if  I  decided  not  to  starve — and  how,  in  any  event, 
I  could  hide  my  identity.  I  came  back  to  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  shop  that  afternoon,  and  when 
George  quit  work  I  followed  him — he  didn't  see 
me — to  find  out  where  he  lived.  I  found  that  he  had 
rooms  in  a  boarding-house  on  East  Thirty-second 
Street. 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  must  have  been  mad.  I  went  down  to 
Fourteenth  Street  that  evening.  I  took  a  little  room 
in  a  house  that  one  of  the  girls  I  met  told  me  about. 
I  really  tried  to  be  a  bad  woman — really  tried — and 
I  couldn't  do  it.  I  just  couldn't  bring  myself  to  it. 


"  Well,  then,  I  said  that  there  was  only  the  one 
thing  left.  Of  course  I  know  that  almost  any  killing 
is  wrong — now.  Of  course  I  know  that  it  is  usually 
worse  than  wrong;  that  it  h  useless.  George  is  dead 
now,  but  what  have  I  gained?  Revenge ?  He  was 
sure  to  have  suffered  more  if  I  had  let  him  live  out 


1 64     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

his  own  destiny.  Did  I  save  other  girls  from  him? 
Not  enough  to  count  while  there  are  so  many  men 
like  him.  I  don't  regret  what  is  going  to  happen  to 
me,  but  the  whole  thing  seems  such  a  waste.  Have 
I  brought  my  father  and  mother  back  to  life?  If  I 
had  escaped — and  you  know  I  didn't  try  to  escape — 
would  I  have  been  any  better  off  because  I  had  killed 
George?  That's  what  I  see  now.  But  then  I  saw 
nothing  except  what  he  had  done  to  me. 

"  That  and  one  thing  more.  I  saw  that,  after  what 
he  had  said  to  his  employer  about  me,  and  after  I 
had  been  seen  in  a  couple  of  the  Fourteenth  Street 
cafes,  people  would  believe  it  was  just  a  low  murder 
by  a  low  woman  and  my  real  name  would  never  have 
to  appear.  As  things  turned  out,  I  was  right. 

"  So  I  waited  for  George.  I  waited  several  days. 
I  waited  till  my  money  was  all  but  gone.  Then  I 
remembered  that  I  hadn't  a  weapon.  I  hadn't  enough 
left  for  a  good  revolver,  and,  anyhow,  I  wanted  no 
mistakes,  so  I  bought  a  knife.  I  am  not  a  good  shot. 
I  know  so  little  about  revolvers. 

"  At  last,  one  night,  I  saw  him  come  out  of  his 
boarding-house.  I  stopped  him  at  the  corner. 

"'You  again?'  he  said.  'If  you  don't  let  me 
alone,  I'll  have  you  pinched  for  soliciting  me  on  the 
street.' 

"  *  I'm  hungry,'  I  told  him.  '  I  want  you  to  buy 
me  a  dinner.' 

"  He  laughed  at  that. 

" '  You  wanted  a  good  deal  more  the  last  time  I 
saw  you,'  he  said.  '  Now  you're  getting  more  sen- 
sible.' 

"  I  knew  what  he  thought,  but  I  didn't  answer. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  KILLED          165 

We  hailed  a  closed  taxicab,  and,  though  there  was 
snow  on  the  ground,  I  asked  him  to  give  me  a 
ride  through  Central  Park  before  we  ate  anything. 
He  agreed.  By  the  time  we  had  got  to  the  upper  end 
of  the  park  and  turned  back,  it  was  dark  and  the 
lamps  along  the  roads  weren't  sufficient  to  light  the 
inside  of  the  taxi. 

'  *  George,'  I  said,  *  I  want  to  give  you  one  more 
chance.' 

"  He  swore  at  me. 
*  *  Are  you  going  to  begin  that  ? '  he  asked. 

"I  was  going  to  b^gin  it.  If  necessary,  I  was 
going  to  end  it,  too.  We  went  all  over  it.  I  argued ; 
he  stormed.  At  the  end,  he  told  me  once  and  for 
all  that  he  was  done  with  me.  He  said  he  would 
have  me  arrested  if  I  ever  spoke  to  him  again.  He 
said  he  was  going  to  stop  the  taxi  and  get  out.  And 
then  he  struck  me  across  the  face. 

"  I  drew  the  knife. 

"  He  never  knew  what  I  was  doing.  He  never 
knew  what  happened  to  him. 

"  I  struck  hard — once,  twice — ever  so  many  times. 
He  merely  gurgled  and  slumped  back  in  the  seat. 
The  taxi  kept  whirring  on  through  the  park.  I 
struck  and  kept  on  striking  till  I  was  exhausted.  My 
hand  ached  with  the  strain.  So  did  my  arm.  I 
stopped.  My  hand  was  wet. 

"  I  stopped  the  taxi. 

"  '  Drive  to  the  nearest  police  station,*  I  said.  '  I 
have  just  killed  this  man.'  " 


XIV 
THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED 

WE  had  been  talking  it  over,  my  friend  and  I, 
late  into  the  night.  As  my  friend  is  what 
is  called  a  "  man  of  the  world,"  it  was  cer- 
tain that  sooner  or  later  he  would  say: 

"  Oh,  the  trouble  with  you  is  that  you're  neglect- 
ing one  entire  side  of  the  problem  1  Of  course  it's 
terrible  that  either  physical  force  or  material  circum- 
stances should  drive  women  into  such  a  business,  and 
that  the  women  so  driven  should  be  the  prey  of 
hideous  illnesses  and  should  spread  those  illnesses; 
but  I  know  enough  to  be  sure  of  one  thing,  and  that 
is  that  some  women  go  wrong  because  they  deliber- 
ately prefer  to  go  wrong." 

When  he  said  that,  I  answered: 

"  About  one  in  a  thousand." 

"So  few?" 

"  Of  their  own  uninfluenced  choice — yes.  The 
statistics  prove  it;  but  even  if  the  statistics  didn't 
prove  it,  I  have  too  good  an  opinion  of  womanhood 
to  set  the  figure  higher." 

"  All  right,  say  one  in  a  thousand.  Why  leave 
them  out  of  your  calculations?  Of  the  sort  that 
go  wrong  because  they  want  to  go  wrong,  some,  so 
far  as  money-making  is  concerned,  must  make  a 
success  of  their  lives." 

"  So  far  as  money-making  is  concerned,  there  are 

1 66 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED      i6f 

some  girls,  even  among  those  forced  into  the  business 
by  circumstances,  that  make  what  you  call  a  success." 

"How  many?" 

"  Say  one  in  four  thousand  five  hundred." 

"Why  not  more?" 

"  Because  the  overwhelming  majority  have  to  turn 
over  their  earnings  to  the  man  or  woman  that  owns 
them;  because,  for  the  rest,  the  necessary  expenses 
of  the  business  exceed  its  income;  because  the  life  cul- 
tivates habits  that  drain  the  purse,  that  drain  the 
health;  because  ninety-odd  per  cent,  are  mathematic- 
ally sure  to  contract  one  of  the  maladies  of  their 
profession;  because  the  average  length  of  existence 
in  their  business  is  just  about  five  years." 

"  Still,"  my  friend  persisted,  "  there  is  your  one 
in  four  thousand  five  hundred." 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  there  she  is.  In  fact,  I  knew  a 
woman  that  went  wrong  by  what  she  thought  was  her 
free  choice,  and  she  made  money  and  saved  it." 

"  I  should  like  to  hear  about  her,"  said  my  friend. 

"  Very  well,"  said  I;  and  I  told  him  the  story  of 
somebody  that  I  shall  here  call  Penelope  Burgess. 

Pen — in  those  days,  six  years  ago,  it  was  the  smart 
thing  to  be  able  to  address  her  by  an  abbreviation — 
came,  so  far  as  any  of  us  could  learn,  of  an  un- 
tainted stock.  Hers  was  a  New  England  family — 
New  England  of  the  sort  that  has  settled  in  Minne- 
apolis and  is  unfriendly  to  St.  Paul.  I  suppose  that, 
indirectly,  you  could  find  economic  influences  at  work 
upon  her,  as  you  can  find  them  in  all  cases;  but  I 
am  regarding,  just  now,  only  primary  influences. 
Anyhow,  her  father  was  by  no  means  badly  off,  her 
home  life  was  pleasant,  and  Pen  was  sent  to  what 


1 68     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

everybody  considered  a  good  school.  Yet,  without 
any  reason  that  appeared  on  the  surface — indeed,  for 
no  other  reason,  she  always  declared,  save  that  she 
"  felt  like  it " — the  girl  ran  away  and  went  on  the 
stage. 

Like  most  young  girls  that  run  away  to  go  on  the 
stage,  Pen  had  no  aptitude  for  the  theater.  She 
did,  however,  have  two  attributes  that,  otherwise 
employed,  would  have  been  admirable.  Otherwise 
employed.  They  were  pluck  and  beauty;  but  this 
girl  used  them  in  her  own  way.  Her  pluck  kept  her 
from  communicating  with  her  family,  so  that  if  they 
ever  felt  inclined  to  take  her  back,  they  never  had 
the  chance;  and  her  beauty — she  was  petite  and 
blonde;  rather  pretty,  in  fact,  than  beautiful,  but  very 
pretty — her  beauty,  since  men  called  it  that,  got 
her  a  wide  reputation  under  her  stage-name,  guar- 
anteed her  engagements,  and  secured  her  a  little 
army  of  male  admirers. 

So  she  found  that  talent  was  unnecessary.  There 
was  no  novitiate  of  barn-storming  for  Pen,  none  of 
the  agonies  of  one-night  stands,  never  the  trial  of 
being  stranded  in  Parksburg  or  Youngstown.  Pen 
began  her  career  as  The  Great  Exception.  She  went 
to  Broadway,  and,  save  for  a  few  "  two-week  runs  " 
in  Boston,  Chicago,  and  perhaps  even  Philadelphia, 
on  Broadway  she  remained.  If  you  were  at  college 
in  those  days,  and  if  I  told  you  her  name,  you  would 
remember  how  you  bought  her  photograph  and  put 
it  on  your  mantelpiece,  and  how  you  forged  her  sig- 
nature upon  it  in  order  that  your  classmates  might 
think  she  gave  it  you. 

Well,  Pen  became  the  vogue.     Not  a  star,  you 


THE  WOMATsf  THAT  SUCCEEDED      169 

understand — even  with  a  theater-going  public  such  as 
ours,  some  vocal  quality,  some  modicum  of  dramatic 
ability  is  required  for  that — but  the  vogue,  neverthe- 
less. The  audiences  saw  that  she  was  decorative,  and 
the  managers  saw  that  the  audiences  saw  it.  She  ap- 
peared upon  the  programmes  of  all  the  successful 
musical  comedies,  and,  though  she  was  neither  musical 
nor  a  comedienne,  she  was  distinctly  a  figure.  She 
also  drew  one — a  somewhat  more  than  comfortable 
salary. 

Now,  when  the  average  girl  reaches  such  a  posi- 
tion on  the  stage,  the  average  girl  keeps  it  until  she 
marries  somebody  with  more  money  than  she  can 
earn ;  but  Pen  was  by  no  means — and  that  is  the  whole 
point  of  my  friend's  contention — an  average  woman. 
She  had  offers  of  marriage — a  lot  of  them — and  sev- 
eral were  financially  flattering;  but  Pen  said  she  was 
her  own  mistress  and  preferred  to  remain  so.  She  had 
more  offers  of  another  sort,  still  more  financially  flat- 
tering; but  to  these  she  also  replied  that  she  meant 
to  be  her  own  mistress.  And  these  things  directly  in- 
creased her  popularity,  and  so  indirectly  increased  her 
salary.  Well-known  dressmakers  contended  to  give 
her  elaborate  gowns,  because  they  knew  that  the 
women  in  her  audiences  would  dress  as  she  did  and 
where  she  did.  One  season  she  set  the  fashion  with  a 
new  coiffure.  And  the  next  somebody  named  a  cigar 
for  her.  This  last  secured  her  fame. 

But  for  such  a  woman  the  New  York  restaurants 
are  an  important  factor — and  such  a  woman  is  an 
important  factor  for  the  New  York  restaurants. 
They  are  interdependent.  It  is  generally  necessary 
to  the  woman's  special  sort  of  popularity  that  she 


i  yo     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

sup  at  elaborate  cafes,  and  it  is  always  necessary  to 
the  popularity  of  the  elaborate  cafes  that  such  women 
appear  there. 

This  is  sober  truth.  Consider  the  river  that  is 
Broadway.  Consider  its  tributaries.  Consider  these 
streams,  the  one  great  and  the  many  scarcely  smaller, 
as  they  hiss  and  bubble,  in  the  white  night-lights, 
through  the  theater  district.  Along  those  few  miles 
of  curb,  their  shores  are  thicker  sprinkled  with  play- 
houses than  are  any  two  blocks  of  London's  Shaftes- 
bury  Avenue — more  playhouses,  one  would  almost 
say,  than  there  are  castles  to  be  seen  along  the  whole 
length  of  the  Rhine.  Well,  for  each  theater  there 
are  half  a  dozen  expensive  restaurants,  and  on  the 
amount  of  money  that  it  costs  to  run  one  restaurant 
for  one  night  your  neighbor's  family  could  live  for 
three  years  in  its  accustomed  comfort.  In  this  field 
of  industry  the  laws  of  competition  still  work  well- 
nigh  unimpaired.  Directed  by  them,  the  proprietors' 
life  staggers  along  the  endless  verge  of  bankruptcy. 
It  proceeds  by  two  rules  only:  each  place  must  have 
more  elaborate  decorations,  plate,  food — if  you  care 
to  call  it  food — than  the  last,  and  each  must  secure 
the  patronage  of  the  class  that  restaurateurs  like  to 
look  at  while  they  eat. 

It  happened  that,  just  as  Pen's  popularity  reached 
its  zenith,  the  popularity  of  Mr.  John  Hewett  showed 
signs  of  an  approaching  eclipse.  To  return  to  our 
preceding  metaphor,  his  business  was  half-way  over 
the  cliff  of  bankruptcy  and  sliding  farther. 

John  Hewett  was  his  real  name.  On  the  gilt 
menus  of  his  gilded  restaurant  he  appeared  as  "  Jean 
Huette,"  and  to  the  white-waistcoated  young-old 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED      171 

men  that  signed  their  bills  there  (and  did  not  pay 
them)  he  was  fondly  known  as  "  Jennie."  He  had 
made  a  good  thing  of  the  dining-room  in  his  wife's 
boarding-house  in  West  Forty-Something  Street. 
They  had  opened  a  "  French  table  d'hote  cafe  "  a 
score  of  blocks  northward  and  saved  money;  then, 
left  a  widower  and  residuary  legatee,  John  had,  in 
an  evil  moment,  been  lured  into  borrowing  a  small 
fortune  and  moving  his  place  of  business  into  a  newly 
erected  Doge's  palace  around  the  corner  on  Broad- 
way. The  race  with  destruction  had  begun  immedi- 
ately, and  was  now,  it  seemed,  about  to  end. 

"  If  I  could  only  get  the  crowd!  "  he  wailed  to 
his  lawyer. 

He  was  a  frail  little  man,  with  a  weak  face  and  a 
waxed  mustache,  and  he  had  no  end  of  confidence 
in  the  legal  bulldog  that  growled  him  occasional 
advice  at  ten  dollars  per  interview. 

"  That's  easy,"  said  the  lawyer.  "  That  Broad- 
way crowd  doesn't  know  any  more  about  good  food 
than  it  knows  about  good  wines.  Change  the  label, 
and  they'll  believe  that  St.  Marcel  is  a  dry  cham- 
pagne." 

"  I've  tried  that,"  faltered  John. 

"  I  know  it — I've  dined  at  your  place.  What  I 
mean  is  that  this  crowd  doesn't  want  food  or  drink; 
so  long  as  the  one  is  filling  and  the  other  alcoholic, 
it  doesn't  care.  It's  just  a  flock  of  sheep  that  will  go 
anywhere  its  leaders  go.  What  you  want  to  do  is 
to  capture  a  bellwether." 

"Who?"  asked  Hewett. 

"  Might  as  well  start  with  the  big  game.  Try 
Pen  Burgess." 


172     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Hewett  gasped.     "  Pen  Burgess  ?" 

"Why  not?  She's  got  to  go  somewhere,  hasn't 
she?" 

"  But  can  I  manage  it?  " 

"  I'll  tell  you,"  said  the  lawyer — and  he  did. 

The  next  morning  (theatrical  time,  I  P.M.),  little 
Hewett  found  himself,  after  a  forty-five-minute  wait, 
in  the  presence  of  Penelope  Burgess,  who  wore  a 
morning-gown  that  looked  like  Queen  Mary's  coro- 
nation robe.  He  poured  out  his  woes  to  her.  He 
told  her  that  she,  and  she  alone,  could  save  him. 
Precisely  as  if  his  name  were  really  Jean  Huette,  he 
shed  tears. 

Pen  was  touched.  She  was  nothing,  at  that  time, 
if  not  good-natured,  and  she  was  touched. 

"Only  how  on  earth  can  I  help  you?"  she  in- 
quired. 

"  You  can  eat,"  sobbed  Hewett. 

"  I  do,"  said  Pen. 

"  But  at  my  place,  at  the  Whitelight.  You  can 
eat  there — the  food  is  not  altogether  bad,  really — 
and  if  you  were  only  to  make  it  your  custom  to  come 
there  every  night  after  the  theater — and  tell  your 
friends — and  sit  at  a  table  that  I  shall  reserve  for 
you,  in  the  very  center — and  it  should  become  known, 
then  others — then  all  the  flock  of  them,  I  am  sure, 

would  be  sure "  Hewett  lost  himself  in  the  web 

of  his  sentence  and  spread  wide  his  wet,  appealing 
palms.  "Don't  you  see?"  he  ended. 

Pen  smiled.     After  all,  it  was  flattering. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  see;  but " 

"  I  will  pay  you  a  regular  price  per  meal,"  said 
the  eager  proprietor. 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED      173 

Pen  wouldn't  hear  of  that,  but  she  agreed  to  come 
regularly  to  the  Whitelight,  and  she  kept  her  word. 
Every  night,  surrounded  by  a  changing  court  of  ad- 
mirers, she  went  there,  and,  as  the  scheme  succeeded 
and  the  crowd  followed  her,  she  got  to  like  it.  She 
finished  by  liking  it  better  than  she  liked  the  stage. 
The  admiration  was  more  direct,  it  was  more  per- 
sonal, it  was  closer  at  hand,  and  she  was  the  star 
performer.  Besides,  she  could  order,  and  did  order, 
whatever  extravagance  teased  her  fancy,  and  it  cost 
her  nothing.  She  became  extremely  fond  of  palatable 
extravagances,  both  solid  and  liquid. 

The  time  came,  of  course,  when  the  restaurant 
interfered  with  the  theater;  so  she  gave  up  the 
theater.  She  did  it  deliberately.  She  had  become  a 
professional  beauty,  and  she  proposed  to  devote  all 
her  attention  to  that.  She  would,  she  clearly  saw, 
have  to  depart  from  the  ways  that  society  considered 
virtuous ;  but  it  would  pay  better  than  the  theater,  if 
properly  managed,  and  she  was  sure  that  she  would 
prefer  it.  Therefore,  as  I  have  said,  just  about  the 
time  that  she  had  changed  Hewett's  fortunes  for  the 
better,  she  changed  her  own. 

Why? 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you — "  for  certain,"  as  the 
children  say.  As  it  is,  all  that  I  can  tell  you  is  what, 
just  about  this  time,  she  told  me.  I  can  add  only  that 
she  was  always  frank. 

"  I've  done  it  because  I  like  this  life,"  she  said. 
"  I  like  the  admiration.  I  like  the  attention.  I  like 
to  come  into  a  big  restaurant,  all  so  full  of  lights 
and  clatter  and  hurrying  waiters  and  well-dressed 
men  and  women.  And  then,  as  I  sail  up  the  room, 


174     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

with  a  good-looking  fellow  or  two  in  attendance,  I 
like  to  see  the  waiters  drop  their  other  work  and 
hurry  to  clear  a  way  for  me.  I  like  to  see  the  head- 
waiter  bowing  and  scraping  to  me  and  ordering  half 
a  dozen  assistants  to  rearrange  the  best  table  and 
bring  on  more  expensive  flowers.  I  like  to  hear  all 
the  careless  clatter  stop,  to  hear  all  those  laughing, 
well-dressed  men  and  women  become  silent,  and  to 
see  them  look  at  me.  I  like  to  hear  them  whisper: 
*  There  she  is  1  Isn't  she  splendid  ?  '  And  I  like  to 
pretend  not  to  hear  them  and  not  to  care." 

"  But,"  I  recall  suggesting,  "  you  know  that  they 
know — everything." 

"  I  don't  care  if  they  do.  What  makes  me  proud 
is  that  they  have  to  admire,  in  spite  of  all  they  know 
of  me.  I  suppose  it's  got  me,  this  life,  just  the  way 
that  the  opium-habit  gets  some  other  people." 

There,  it  seems  to  me,  she  hit  it.  The  excitement 
of  Broadway's  night  phase  was  food  to  her,  and  its 
admiration  was  strong  drink.  The  fact  that  she  paid 
for  it  with  her  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  and  the  fact 
that  it  necessitated  other  rich  food  and  genuine  strong 
drink — these  things  she  refused  to  reckon. 

The  price — it  is  a  pity  that  she  did  not  reckon 
upon  the  price.  For  her  slim  prettiness,  if  for  noth- 
ing else,  she  was  so  well  worth  saving ! 

I  can  see  her  yet  as  she  was  in  1905 — with  the 
figure  of  a  young  girl  and  the  delicate,  oval  face  of 
a  sensitive  child.  Those  were  her  charms;  the  best 
of  dressmakers,  the  highest-priced  of  milliners  could 
but  provide  a  frame — they  could  accentuate,  but  they 
could  not  enhance  the  lithe  body,  the  gracious  ease 
of  movement,  the  almost  severely  classic  lines  of  chin 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED      175 

and  lips  and  nose  and  the  eyes  that  were  big  and 
round  and  clear. 

Well,  she  had  her  ideal  and  she  achieved  it,  be- 
cause she  was  a  free  agent.  Because  she  was  no  man's 
slave,  she  became  her  own  bondwoman.  Because 
she  was  deliberate,  she  could  select  her  way  and  fol- 
low it  carefully.  She  was  the  Great  Exception  still. 
She  was  the  one  woman  in  the  thousands — the  rare 
variant  that  those  who  belittle  all  anti-slavery  agita- 
tion, sane  or  insane,  forever  harp  upon.  She  con- 
tracted none  of  the  ills  peculiar  to  her  business;  she 
made  money,  and  she  saved  it. 

Mark  what  happened. 

This,  though  Pen  and  a  great  many  people  tnat 
regard  themselves  as  far  better  are  slow  to  admit  it, 
remains  a  world  wherein  nobody  has  ever  yet  evolved 
a  means  of  getting  something  for  nothing.  "  It  was," 
says  Carlyle,  "  from  of  old  said,  The  loser  pays." 
He  does  pay;  but  so,  be  forever  sure,  does  also  the 
gainer.  Not  always  directly;  often  indirectly;  gen- 
erally a  bit  at  a  time,  and  almost  always  in  secret — 
but  he  pays.  For  the  term  of  our  natural  life  the 
body  moral  is  bound  to  the  physical  body,  and  be- 
tween them  action  and  reaction  are  opposite  and 
equal. 

Given  all  other  immunity,  in  Pen's  profession,  as 
in  all  professions,  what  you  do  must  leave  its  mark. 
The  public  woman  that  escapes  perils  by  the  way- 
side goes  straight  on  to  the  peril  that  is  at  the  end 
of  the  way.  Having  beauty,  her  work  requires  that 
she  sacrifice  it  before  its  time;  having  youth,  she 
gives  youth  for  her  daily  food.  Her  supply  is 
limited  by  the  limits  of  the  human  constitution. 


176     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

What  she  gets  is  admiration  and  money;  what  she 
gives  to  get  these  things  is  something  that  must  ex- 
haust itself  before  she  has  got  all  that  she  wants.  It 
is  geometrical  progression  physically  applied. 

Remember,  I  repeat,  that  Pen  succeeded.  Remem- 
ber that  she  put  money  aside.  Remember  that  she 
achieved  just  what  she  wanted,  that  she  gained  a  pin- 
nacle gained  by  but  one  in  many  thousands.  And,  as 
I  say,  mark  what  happened. 

What  happened  to  Pen  was  that  she  grew  fat. 

Funny,  isn't  it? 

But  wait. 

Pen  never  neglected  her  mirror.  She  passed,  daily, 
hours  before  it.  She  had  to.  And  though,  at  last, 
she  began  to  be  a  little  blind  to  some  of  the  things 
she  saw  there,  she  one  day  admitted  that  the  beauti- 
ful lines  of  her  throat  were  growing  less  distinct;  she 
was  getting  a  double  chin. 

Pen  weighed  herself  and  found  to  her  consterna- 
tion that  she  was  ominously  overweight. 

She  went  each  noon  to  a  Turkish  bath,  where  she 
was  steamed  among  a  score  of  other  women,  whose 
appearance  was  repulsive  to  her,  but  who  were  there 
on  errands  similar  to  her  own.  Yet  her  weight  in- 
creased. She  passed  her  lonely  hours  with  her  chin 
in  a  compress — to  no  good  end.  She  sought  a  doctor. 

"  You  must  take  exercise,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  I  hate  it !  "  cried  Pen. 

The  doctor  shrugged,  and  Pen  exercised  rigor- 
ously. But  she  gained  weight  and  so  reported. 

"  Well,"  said  the  doctor,  "  we  must  go  further. 
No  late  hours.  No  rich  food.  Plenty  of  sleep  of  a 
rational  sort.  And  no  wine." 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED      177 

Pen  puckered  her  mouth — and  her  mouth  was  still 
pretty. 

"  Why  don't  you  tell  me  some  easier  way?  "  she 
inquired. 

"  That  is  what  everybody  wants,"  answered  the 
doctor — "  an  easier  way.  But  there  is  none." 

It  came,  finally,  to  this :  the  life  she  loved  had  de- 
manded all  of  her  that  made  the  life  she  loved  love 
her.  Pen  hesitated;  but  she  had  already  made  her 
choice.  "  It's  like  the  opium-habit,"  she  had  said. 
She  did  not  want  the  thing  that  she  would  gain  at 
the  price  of  the  doctor's  regimen.  She  wanted  to 
"  go  ahead  " — and  go  ahead  she  did. 

At  first  she  did  not  notice  the  subtle  changes,  but 
the  changes  were  there. 

There  was  a  gradual  shifting  in  the  types  of  men 
that  courted  her  favors.  These  men  were  once  of 
middle  life,  rich,  prominent,  known,  smart.  Then 
there  came,  in  the  place  of  the  earlier  suitors,  callow 
lads  from  college,  who  courted  not  Pen,  but  a  repu- 
tation for  gilded  wickedness  by  being  seen  with  Pen; 
who  hid  their  ignorance  of  Broadway  restaurants 
under  a  loudness  of  manner,  and  who  found  a  false 
courage  for  false  deeds  and  false  vows  in  more  cham- 
pagne than  was  good  for  them.  Several  were  dis- 
missed from  college  because  of  her  and  one  was 
found  in  the  East  River.  Yet  they,  too,  fell  away 
and  were  followed  by  men  with  bulging  waistcoats 
and  gray  hair  or  no  hair  at  all — men  that  aped  youth 
while  their  heavily  veined  hands  trembled,  men. 
that  did  not  sugar-coat  their  talk.  One  of  these, 
who  had  a  small  job  in  a  bank,  w'as  sent  to  Sing 
Sing. 


178     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

These  changes  in  her  admirers  were  but  the  re- 
flections of  changes  in  Pen.  Her  face  was  no  longer 
the  face  of  a  sensitive  child;  it  was  no  longer  oval: 
it  was  round.  Her  body  was  no  longer  that  of  a 
young  girl :  it  was  what,  by  a  strange  twist  of  the 
word,  we  call  matronly.  Her  movements  were 
neither  lithe  nor  gracious;  they  were  always  heavy 
and  sometimes  clumsy,  and  the  utmost  pains  of  con- 
stantly shifted  dressmakers  availed  nothing.  The 
chin  was  now  unmistakably  double;  the  lips  were  a 
little  valley  between  the  cheeks ;  the  nose  was  a  nega- 
tive quantity,  and  the  eyes,  when  one  at  all  noticed 
them,  were  not  clear. 

The  Broadway  crowd  responded — or,  rather, 
failed  to  respond.  There  was  no  stir  of  attention 
when  Pen  entered  a  cafe.  The  women  did  not  raise 
their  eyes  from  their  escorts  to  study  her  clothes  and 
her  figure.  Nobody  said :  "  There  she  is !  "  Nobody 
said  anything.  And  the  waiters  were  less  atten- 
tive. 

Pen  had  occasionally  wavered  in  her  fidelity  to  the 
Whitelight,  but  now  she  renewed  it,  and,  for  a  while, 
Hewett,  who  possessed  a  certain  small  share  of  the 
sense  of  gratitude,  received  her  with  a  tempered 
cordiality.  You  have  understood  that,  when  in  the 
first  days  she  preferred  to  sup  alone  at  the  White- 
light — as,  by  him,  she  sometimes  did — there  was  no 
charge;  but  among  these  latter  evenings  there  came 
one  when  she  supped  alone  by  force  of  circumstances, 
and  when  she  had  finished,  the  head-waiter  amazed 
her  by  presenting  a  bill. 

"What's  this?"  asked  Pen,  staring  at  the  paper 
as  if  she  had  never  seen  such  a  thing  before. 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED      179 

"  The  bill,  madam." 

Under  her  rouge,  Pen  went  pale. 

"  You're  new  here,  aren't  you?  "  she  demanded. 

"  Two  years,  madam." 

"  That  accounts  for  it.  Tell  Mr.  Hewett  that 
Miss  Penelope  Burgess  wants  to  see  him." 

"Mr.  Hewett,  ma'am?" 

"  Well,  M.  Huette,  then.    It's  the  same  thing." 

Hewett  came — still  wax-mustached  and  fresh- 
cheeked,  but  grown  vastly  important. 

"See  here,  Hewett,"  said  Pen;  "this  fresh  guy 
head-waiter  of  yours  has  given  me  a  bill !  " 

Hewett  blushed.  He  was  apologetic.  He  tore  up 
the  bill. 

But  he  did  not  send  for  the  head-waiter,  and  the 
next  time  that  Pen  supped  alone  at  the  Whitelight 
she  got  a  bill  again. 

Then  Hewett  was  outspoken.  He  was  very  sorry, 
but  it  must  be.  He  could  no  longer  make  exceptions ; 
the  business  had  grown 

"  Who  started  it  growing  for  you  ?  "  asked  Pen. 

Oh,  he  knew  that,  did  Hewett,  and  he  was  grate- 
ful. But  time  had  passed,  and  in  the  past  he  had 
given  enough  suppers  to  Miss  Burgess  to  repay  all 
her  old  kindnesses. 

Pen  laid  down  -  yellow-backed  bill. 

"  Keep  the  change,  Jennie,"  she  said,  and  swished 
out  of  the  place. 

She  was  well-to-do;  she  had  no  fear  of  poverty; 
but  her  love  of  the  Broadway  night-life  had  grown 
with  experience;  the  habit  was  part  of  her  being, 
and  it  was  with  a  shock  that  she  realized  that  the 
evenings  when  there  were  no  wooers,  when  she  must 


i8o     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

perforce  sup  alone,  were  more  and  more  frequent. 
Still,  sup  in  public  she  would,  and,  in  order  to  show 
Hewett  that  she  could  pay  his  highest  prices,  she  chose 
often  the  Whitelight.  She  was  sure  that  those  prices 
were  regularly  raised  for  her  especial  benefit,  but  she 
would  not  so  much  as  "  add  up  "  the  bill.  Because 
she  was  so  lonely,  she  would  sometimes,  though  not 
often,  grow  a  little  drunk,  and  the  other  patrons 
would  smile. 

Then,  one  evening,  when — as  was  now  a  necessary 
precaution — she  had  reserved  her  old  table  by  tele- 
phone, she  entered  in  the  wake  of  some  much  be- 
cloaked  young  woman  surrounded  by  a  bevy  of  men 
— a  woman  that  Pen  did  not  recognize.  She  heard 
the  stir  that  she  had  so  often  heard  in  other  days. 
She  saw  the  women  raise  their  eyes,  and  the  men 
raise  eyes  of  a  different  sort.  She  heard  them  say : 
"There  she  is!  Isn't  she  splendid?"  There  was 
the  familiar  scurry  of  attendant  waiters — and  the 
other  woman,  a  mere  chit  of  a  girl,  with  the  face  of 
a  child  and  the  slim  figure  of  a  graduate,  was  shown 
to  the  place  that  had  been  Pen's. 

Pen  turned  and  encountered  Hewett  in  the  center 
of  the  room. 

"  I  reserved  that  table !  "  she  said. 

'She  pointed,  and  she  spoke  loudly.  People  wheeled 
in  their  chairs  and  grinned  at  the  fun. 

"Hush!  "  pleaded  Hewett.  "I'm  sorry.  There 
was  some  mix-up.  You  shall  have  this  excellent  table 
over  here." 

He  indicated  a  shadowy  corner. 

"  Not  much !  "  cried  Pen.  "  I'll  have  my  own  f 
Who's  this  that's  got  it?  " 


THE  WOMAN  THAT  SUCCEEDED      181 

In  low  breaths  Hewett  told  her.  It  was  Cicely 
Morton,  the  new  professional  beauty.  Everybody 
was  wild  about  her. 

Pen  bit  her  lip.  What  she  had  long  known  could 
no  more  be  denied:  other  women  had  come  and 
gone,  other  women  had  become  the  talk  of  the  town 
— New  York,  that  loves  so  intensely  and  so  briefly, 
had  forgotten  her. 

She  rebelled  in  the  only  way  that  she  understood 
rebellion.  She  swore  at  Hewett.  The  little  pro- 
prietor, seeing  that  a  scene  could  not  be  avoided, 
resolved  to  make  this  scene  final.  He  told  her  that 
she  was  a  nuisance  and  that  she  was  not  again  to 
enter  the  Whitelight.  Penelope  seized  a  water- 
bottle  from  the  nearest  table  and  hit  him  with  it.  She 
was  hustled  into  the  street,  disheveled,  torn,  haggard 
— not  pretty  to  look  at.  She  was  arrested  and  taken 
to  the  Night  Court.  Hewett  refused  to  press  the 
charge,  but  the  newspapers  printed  funny  stories.  It 
was  all  very  humorous. 

That  was  the  end's  beginning.  Pen  had  long  since 
ceased  to  be  Broadway's  idol;  she  now  became  its 
joke.  The  Big  Street's  population  changes  yearly, 
and  the  newcomers  knew  not  Penelope.  What  had 
happened  at  the  Whitelight  repeated  itself,  with  un- 
essential variations,  at  many  restaurants.  Often,  as 
she  walked  the  pavement  of  an  afternoon,  she  heard 
the  younger  women  giggle  at  her;  once,  when  she 
filed  out  of  a  cafe  with  a  decrepit  man  whose  com- 
panionship she  had  virtually  hired,  she  heard  a  wife 
say: 

"Who's  that  awful  old  harridan?" 

And  the  husband,  who  had  once  begged  permis- 


1 82     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

sion  to  kiss  Pen's  hand,  adjusted  his  glasses,  scruti- 
nized her,  and  responded: 

"Bless  me!     I  don't  know.     Fierce,  isn't  she?" 

And  Pen  was  still,  in  years,  what  most  of  us  call 
young. 

So  Pen,  you  see,  succeeded.  She  was  the  Great 
Exception  that  my  friend  had  talked  about  and  in- 
sisted upon.  She  contracted  none  of  the  illnesses 
peculiar  to  her  profession.  She  saved  money.  She 
has  not  paid  one  fraction  more  for  her  sort  of  life 
than  is,  even  in  the  case  of  the  one  woman  in  thou- 
sands, absolutely,  and  by  the  greatest  possible  exer- 
tion of  human  precaution,  necessary.  But  the  mini- 
mum price  even  the  Great  Exception  has  to  pay. 

Music,  mirth,  human  companionship — she  can 
have  them,  when  at  all,  in  return  for  nothing  but  dol- 
lars and  cents.  What  her  beauty  and  her  youth  once 
paid  for  she  has  now  to  pay  for  with  the  money  that 
her  youth  once  earned. 

She  has  rented,  has  Pen,  an  expensive  apartment 
in  a  Broadway  hotel,  where,  when  she  hasn't  the 
courage  to  go  out  with  a  hired  escort  and  be  laughed 
at  in  the  places  that  once  were  shrines  in  her  honor, 
she  can  lean  from  the  window  and  see  the  lamps  and 
hear  the  clatter  of  the  cabs  and  motors,  and  occasion- 
ally catch — or  thinks  she  catches — the  sound  of  music 
from  the  Whitelight 


XV 

THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  HUNGRY 

NAN  was  out  of  a  job. 
It  isn't  pleasant,  being  out  of  a  job,  as 
many  of  us  have   at  one  time  or  another 
learned.     It  somehow  wears  on  the  tissues,  it  rasps 
the  nerves ;  in  the  end,  it  dulls  those  finer  perceptions 
whereby  we  normally  distinguish  what  the  profes- 
sors of  ethics  call  the  moral  values. 

About  that,  however,  Nan  knew  nothing,  for  this 
was  her  first  experience.  Her  mother  had  died  in 
their  little  Chicago  flat  three  years  before,  when  Nan 
was  fifteen;  but  her  father,  who  had  a  good  place  in 
one  of  the  glue  factories  over  in  Packingtown,  had 
kept  his  two  daughters  at  school  and  maintained  what 
was,  as  such  things  go,  a  good  home  for  them. 
George,  the  only  son,  was  a  private  in  the  army — 
and  the  Philippines;  they  rarely  heard  from  him. 
Fanny,  the  older  girl,  was  just  about  to  graduate 
from  her  course  in  stenography;  but  Nan,  who  was 
pretty,  had  been  decided  to  be  too  pretty  to  do  any- 
thing but  marry — and  as  the  duties  of  marriage  are 
not  supposed  to  require  a  knowledge  of  economics, 
either  business  or  domestic,  Nan  was  not  precisely 
fitted  for  a  commercial  career.  She  had  one  more 
year  to  serve  in  the  high  school  when  her  father, 
from  working  too  long  in  a  badly-aired  room,  de- 
veloped tuberculosis.  Nan,  who  nursed  him,  had 
183 


1 84     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

never  understood  that  she  had  a  job,  but  when  her 
father  died  she  realized  that  she  was  out  of  one. 

The  father  left  just  enough  money  to  pay  the  ex- 
penses of  that  extremely  expensive  luxury  known  as 
Death.  He  demonstrated  again  what  is  being  demon- 
strated every  minute  everywhere — that,  exorbitant 
as  is  the  cost  of  living,  the  cost  of  dying  is  beyond 
all  reason. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  when  Nan,  months  later,  told  me 
about  it,  "what  did  you  do?" 

I  have  said  that  Nan  was  once  pretty.  When  her 
father  died,  she  must  have  been  very  pretty  indeed. 
I  believe  that  she  was  slim  then,  with  a  lithe  figure, 
pink-cheeked,  and  the  proud  possessor  of  a  mass  of 
chestnut  hair  just  touched  by  gold.  Even  when  I  met 
her  there  was  a  genuine  charm  in  her  face,  and  all 
that  she  had  endured  had  failed  quite  to  ruin  the 
glory  of  her  great  and  once  spaniel-like  eyes.  The 
eyes  widened  when  I  asked  her  my  question. 

"  Do?  "  she  echoed.  "  What  was  we  to  do?  It's 
not  what  I  done;  it's  how  I  was  done." 

Fanny  got  a  place  as  stenographer  in  a  Cleveland 
automobile  factory  and  left  Chicago.  George,  being 
a  professional  hero,  remained  unresponsive  and  ir- 
responsible in  the  Philippines.  Nan  sold  the  furni- 
ture and  moved  into  a  hall  bedroom  on  the  profits. 

One  follows  naturally  one's  training.  Nan,  being 
quite  sure  that  she  had  been  trained  for  marriage — 
as  she  had  never  been  trained  for  anything  else,  she 
must  have  been  trained  for  marriage — Nan  began 
to  look  over  her  boy  friends  with  what  the  news- 
paper "  personals  "  call  "  a  view  to  matrimony." 

There  were  Tom,   Dick,  and  Harry — several  of 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  HUNGRY     185 

each — but  none  of  them  was  really  ready  or  able  to 
support  a  wife.  In  fact,  Nan  speedily  discovered  that 
she  had  unconsciously  cultivated  only  such  friends — 
the  others  were  stupid — as  had  small  chance  of  being 
ready  for  a  good  many  years  to  come. 

Tom  had  just  started  as  a  clerk  in  a  law-office, 
getting  eight  dollars  a  week;  Dick  was  still  in  the 
high  school,  getting  nothing,  and  Harry,  who  was 
quite  the  most  fascinating  of  all,  had  not  of  late  been 
observably  successful  in  the  pursuit  of  a  somewhat 
nebulous  occupation  connected  with  running-horses 
that  did  not  run  in  Chicago. 

"  Wait  till  I'm  admitted  to  the  bar,"  said  Tom. 
"  Only  just  wait  for  me,  Nan.  Why,  it  won't  be  but 
a  few  years." 

"  Wait  till  I'm  out  o'  school,  Nan,"  pleaded  Dick. 
"  I've  got  a  fair  job  ready  for  me  in  a  State  Street 
insurance  office.  If  you  only  knew  how  much  I  cared 
for  you,  you  certainly  could  wait  that  little  while." 

And  as  for  Harry,  he  said  nothing  at  all. 

Now,  Nan  was  willing  to  wait;  but  her  land- 
lady was  not.  Nan  wanted  to  marry,  but  she  was  in 
no  great  hurry  about  it.  The  thing  that  she  was  in 
a  hurry  about  was  to  remain  alive.  One  cannot  wait 
even  a  few  years  without  food  and  clothes  and  lodg- 
ing; it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  wait  so  much  as  a 
few  weeks  without  them,  and  Nan  was  used  to  a 
home,  a  dress,  and  three  meals  a  day.  When  the 
money  that  had  come  from  the  furniture  sale  had 
shrunk  to  a  single  yellow-backed  bill,  Nan  decided 
that,  since  openings  were  so  rare  in  the  career  that 
had  been  chosen  for  her,  she  must  now  choose  an- 
other career  for  herself. 


1 86     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

The  month  was  August,  and  most  employers,  far 
from  engaging  new  workers,  were  "  laying  off  "  old 
ones.  Times  had,  moreover,  been  hard;  there  had 
been  one  of  our  periodic,  automatic  panics  in  the 
stock  market,  and  the  slow  but  certain  approach  of  a 
presidential  election  did  not  serve  as  an  inducement 
for  business  firms  to  enlarge  their  pay-rolls.  Finally, 
Nan  had  no  "  experience." 

She  began  by  hating  that  word  "  experience,"  and 
she  ended  by  fearing  it.  On  the  few  occasions  when 
a  job  seemed  to  be  just  possible  of  capture,  that  job 
was  sure  to  leap  nimbly  away  in  answer  to  the  in- 
evitable question: 

"  What  experience  have  you  had?  " 

Once,  toward  the  end,  Nan  lied.  A  man  that 
wanted  a  typist  put  the  query,  and  Nan  faltered  out 
the  statement  that  she  had  had  "  a  little."  Then  he 
took  her  to  the  machine,  and  the  inanimate  mech- 
anism straightway  betrayed  her. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  she  again  fell  in  with 
Dick,  to  whom  much  had  been  happening — and 
rapidly. 

Dick  had  decided  to  improve  his  vacation  by  going 
into  that  insurance  office  for  the  summer  and  learn- 
ing the  business.  He  had  not  learned  the  insurance 
business,  but  he  had  speedily  qualified  for  the  position 
of  a  barkeeper,  and  might  have  ended  inside  of  a 
white  coat  if  he  had  not  approached  the  trade  from 
across  the  counter.  As  it  was,  he  absentmindedly 
paid  a  wine-bill  with  a  premium,  and,  instead  of  a 
white  coat,  came  close  to  being  fitted  with  a  striped 
one. 

His  descent  was  unimpeded.     He  lost  his  position 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  HUNGRY     1 87 

and  was  cast  off  by  his  family.  He  tramped  the 
streets.  Sometimes  he  begged,  and,  when  begging 
failed,  he  stole.  When  they  wouldn't  let  him  sleep  in 
the  barrooms  where  he  had  spent  his  money,  he  slept 
in  the  parks  where  there  was  none  to  be  spent,  and 
when  he  was  hustled  out  of  the  park  he  tried  the  bar- 
room again. 

It  was  not  a  happy  life,  and  he  was  glad  to  get 
out  of  it.  He  got  out  by  becoming  a  "  runner  "  for  a 
place  that  was  neither  a  saloon  nor  a  young  ladies' 
seminary. 

Nan  he  met  just  as  he  was  beginning  an  evening's 
work.  He  drew  her  aside  and  suggested  a  drink, 
which  she  refused,  and  reminded  her  that  he  had 
loved  her,  to  which  her  weary  brain  listened  eagerly. 

"  You  come  with  me,"  he  said,  "  an'  get  out  o' 
all  your  troubles." 

"  Why,"  gasped  Nan — and  she  looked  hard,  under 
the  lamplight,  into  his  watery  eyes — "  can  you  marry 
me  now  ?  " 

Richard  grinned  uneasily. 

"  If  you  like,"  he  said;  and  what  hurt  her  most 
was  that  he  did  not  feel  the  pathos  of  her  impulsive 
query.  "  Anyhow,  I've  got  a  job  for  you." 

"  For  me?  "  Her  own  eyes  were  wide.  "  Aren't 
you  workin'  yourself?" 

Richard  made  an  answer.  It  was  a  long  answer, 
and  it  was  both  vague  and  glowing.  But  there  is 
this  also  about  privation — that  if  it  dulls  the  moral 
insight,  it  sharpens  one's  vision  of  the  human  heart. 
Nan  had  not  gone  so  far  as  to  suffer  the  former  ill, 
yet  she  had  gone  far  enough  to  receive  the  latter 
benefit.  Beneath  the  salve  she  saw  the  sore. 


1 88     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  I  hate  you !  "  she  said. 

Dick  shrugged  his  shrunken  shoulders. 

"All  right,"  he  replied;  "  but  you'll  feel  different 
when  you  get  hungry.  Just  remember,  then,  that  I'm 
always  around  this  part  o'  town  at  this  time  o'  day, 
an'  that  I  stand  for  beefsteak  an'  coffee — not  to  men- 
tion the  wine." 

She  left  him  without  another  word.  Forget  him 
she  could  not,  but,  reviewing  her  weary  struggle  in 
her  weary  soul,  she  decided  that  she  had  been  mis- 
directing her  efforts.  It  had  seemed  incredible  to 
her  that,  with  so  much  work  to  be  done  in  the  world 
and  with  so  many  persons  wanting  to  do  it,  there 
should  not  be,  ready  to  hand,  her  share.  She  had, 
therefore,  hunted  blindly  and  by  chance,  starting  wTith 
the  morning  and  walking  the  streets  until  the  last 
minute  of  the  business  day,  entering  whatever  place 
of  employment  appealed  to  her  fancy.  Now  she  be- 
gan to  study  the  "  want  advertisements  "  of  the  news- 
papers. 

But  she  fared  no  better.  Early  as  she  might  seek 
an  advertiser,  there  were  always  many  applicants 
ahead  of  her,  and  among  these  there  were  always 
many  of  long  experience  in  the  work  offered.  Over 
two-thirds  of  the  advertisers  proved,  in  addition,  to 
want  not  work,  but  money.  They  required  what 
they  called  "  a  small  deposit  "  to  learn  the  business 
or  for  "  the  preliminary  paraphernalia."  A  large 
number  wanted  canvassers  to  sell  the  unsalable  on 
small  commissions.  And  others 

Well,  Nan  went  to  see  some  of  the  others.  This 
one  was  typical: 

He  sat  in  a  little  office,  a  dark  room  at  the  back  of 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  HUNGRY     189 

a  building  on  Dearborn  Street.  He  had  a  heavy, 
clean-shaven  face,  with  a  double  chin,  and  little, 
colorless  eyes.  He  was  alone  and  had  advertised 
for  a  clerk. 

Nan  sat  down  and  held  out  her  thumbed  copy  of 
a  morning  paper. 

"  I've  come  in  answer  to  your  ad.,"  she  said. 

It  was  a  well-worn  formula;  but  she  had  then, 
for  a  week,  been  trying  to  get  along  without  brdak- 
fasts.  Her  voice  trembled. 

The  'heavy  man  looked  at  her.  His  little  eyes 
were  sharp — so  sharp  that  she  felt  herself  blushing. 
He  put  out  for  the  paper  a  stubby,  dirty  hand,,  and 
he  touched  her  hand  as  he  took  it. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  but  he  wasn't  looking  at  the 
paper:  he  was  looking  at  Nan.  "What  experience 
have  you  had?  " 

Nan's  red  under  lip  quivered. 

"  I  can  learn,"  she  almost  whispered. 

"  D'you  think  you  can?  "  The  heavy  man  smiled 
unpleasantly. 

In  a  flash  it  came  over  Nan — what  was  in  his 
mind.  He  had  done  no  more  than  touch  her  hand, 
but  Nan  remembered  Dick. 

"  You  " — she  did  want  work — "  you  advertised 
for  a  clerk,"  she  insisted. 

The  heavy  man's  smile  continued. 

"  Ferget  it,"  said  he. 

Nan  started  to  rise,  but  the  man  put  his  dirty 
hand  upon  her  arm.  He  did  not  force  her,  but  she 
remembered  that,  only  a  few  hours  before,  her  land- 
lady had  demanded  the  past  week's  rent  and  that 


190    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

the  past  week's  rent  Had  not  been  forthcoming.  She 
sank  back  in  her  rickety  chair. 

"  You  don't  want  to  be  no  clerk,"  said  the  man. 

"I  do!  "  said  Nan;  but  there  was  small  power  in 
her  tone. 

"  Well,"  said  the  man,  "  give  me  your  #J-dress 
an'  I'll  think  it  over." 

The  girl  complied,  and  the  man  noted  the  street 
and  number  on  a  pad. 

"  There's  a  friend  o'  mine  runs  a  place  over  in  In- 
diana," said  the  man.  "  It's  a  swell  place,  all  right, 
an'  if  you  really  didn't  want  to  be  no  clerk " 

"  I  do  want  to  be  a  clerk !  " 

"  Well,  if  you  changed  your  mind,  you  could  any- 
how come  round  an'  say  so." 

Nan  mumbled  something — she  did  not  know  what 
— and  went  away.  She  spent  the  remainder  of  the 
daylight  in  a  vain  repetition  of  the  miserable  quest, 
and  on  her  way  back  to  the  unpaid-for  hall-bedroom 
she  passed  the  lighted  windows  of  cafes,  where,  din- 
ing in  brilliant  gowns,  sat  other  women  who,  she 
bitterly  reflected,  had  at  some  period  of  their  lives 
not  said  "  No  "  to  their  Dick. 

Having  got  along  without  breakfasts,  Nan  now 
got  along  without  lunches — but  she  did  not  pay  her 
rent.  The  landlady  threatened,  but  Nan,  with  hot 
tears  on  her  cold  cheeks,  begged  for  one  week  more 
of  grace,  and  got  it. 

She  had  been  weary,  she  had  been  dispirited;  now 
she  was  hungry. 

Were  you  ever  hungry?  I  don't  mean  to  ask  if 
you  have  ever  sat  so  long  at  luncheon  that  you  had 
to  stay  overtime  at  the  office  and  so  were  late  for 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  HUNGRY     191 

dinner.  I  don't  mean  to  inquire  if  you  were  ever  dis- 
appointed at  finding  that  your  train  didn't  carry  a 
buffet-car,  or  if  in  a  strange  city  you  spent  all  your 
loose  change  by  night  and  had  next  morning  to  post- 
pone breakfast  until  you  could  be  identified  at  the 
bank.  I  don't  mean  to  say:  Did  you  ever  want  a 
meal  ?  I  mean :  Did  you  ever  have  to  have  one  ? 

If  you  were  ever  in  that  position,  there  is  no  need 
now  to  tell  you  how  it  feels.  If  you  were  never  there, 
description  won't  serve.  Don't  try  to  imagine  it. 
Don't  try  to  think  what  it  must  be  to  walk  with  a 
step  that  totters  on  a  quest  that  is  vain — to  look  with 
eyes  that  see  double  for  something  that  doesn't  exist. 
Don't  bother  about  that.  Just  take  my  word  for  the 
bare  facts.  Nan  starved  for  three  days,  all  the  while 
remembering  Dick.  On  the  evening  of  the  third 

day No,  she  did  not  meet  him  by  chance.     She 

was  done  with  chance.  She  quit  hunting  for  work 
and  she  hunted  for  Dick  until  she  found  him. 

"  Here  I  am,"  she  said.  "  I'll  stay  till  I  get  a 
job." 

But  Richard  smiled  wisely.  He  knew  his  own 
world  well. 

Here,  if  I  were  trying  in  these  sketches  to  be  a 
tragic  artist,  that  ought  to  be  the  end  of  my  story. 
I  am  not,  however,  trying  to  be,  here  and  now,  any- 
thing of  the  sort.  I  am  trying  to  give  you  a  few  facts 
from  life,  and  life  has  no  fear  of  the  anti-climax. 
Therefore  I  proceed. 

Nan  became — not  to  mince  matters — Dick's  slave. 
Dick  ceased  being  a  runner,  working  for  precarious 
commissions,  and  set  up,  in  a  two-room  tenement,  as 
a  small  but  full-fledged  proprietor.  He  did  not  work 


192    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

at  all.  Nan  did  that;  she  worked — and  walked. 
Dick,  if  not  sufficiently  employed  by  spending  the 
money  that  she  brought  home,  occupied  the  remainder 
of  his  time  by  beating  her  in  an  effort  to  stimulate 
her  earning  capacity.  His  friends,  who  were  all  in 
the  same  line  of  business,  said  that  they  never  saw  a 
more  devoted  woman;  the  policemen  on  the  beat  said 
that  they  never  saw  one  more  hopelessly  depraved. 
So  much  had  been  accomplished  by  one  month  of 
servitude. 

Then  came  the  tragedy.  High-heeled,  rouged,  and 
crayoned,  Nan  kissed  Dick  quite  as  usual  one  even- 
ing, and,  with  her  big  leathern  pocketbook  swinging 
from  her  hand,  set  out  for  work.  This  was  at  eight 
o'clock.  At  nine  she  accosted  a  man — a  man  that 
I  happen  to  have  met — and  with  him  she  returned 
home. 

Dick,  having  drunk  a  little  harder  than  usual  that 
afternoon,  had  been  tardy  about  returning  to  his  fa- 
vorite saloon.  Consequently  he  was  at  the  tenement 
to  meet  the  pair. 

"  Excuse  me,"  said  Dick,  and  began  awkwardly  to 
shuffle  toward  the  door. 

But  the  man — he  is  a  large  man,  with  singularly 
muscular  arms  and  a  singularly  keen  pair  of  blue 
eyes — barred  the  way. 

"  You  needn't  hurry,"  he  answered.  "  In  fact, 
we  want  to  see  you." 

Dick's  eyes  stared. 

"  Me?  "  he  asked.    "  What  about?  " 

He  had  addressed  himself,  at  least  in  part,  to 
Nan.  It  was,  however,  the  stranger  that  replied. 

"  About  this  girl,"  said  he. 


THE  GIRL  THAT  WAS  HUNGRY     193 

Instantly  Dick's  face  twisted  hideously.  He  leaped 
back.  His  right  hand  shot  to  his  pocket. 

"  Don't  try  that,"  warned  the  stranger.  "  There's 
a  policeman  waiting  just  outside." 

Dick's  hand  fell. 

"Are  you  a  fly-cop?"  he  demanded. 

"  No;  only  a  man.    What  are  you?  " 

"  None  o'  your  business.  What  do  you  want  with 
my  girl?  " 

"  I  want  to  tell  you  that  she  is  not  your  girl  any 
longer.  My  wife  needs  another  house-servant,  and 
Nan  has  agreed  to  try  to  hold  down  the  place." 

If  Dick's  face  could  be  more  hideous  than  it  was 
in  hot  anger,  it  became  more  hideous  now  in  an  anger 
that  was  cold.  He  laughed. 

"A  house-servant?"  he  mocked.  "Don't  you 
know  what  she  is?  " 

"  I  know  only  what  you  have  tried  to  make  her," 
said  the  stranger. 

Dick  turned  to  the  girl. 

"  Do  you  dare?  "  he  asked. 

"Dare  to  go?"  Her  eyes  were  no  longer  the 
eyes  of  a  spaniel.  "  How  long  did  you  think  I'd 
stay?  Did  you  think  I  liked  it?  Why,  I  told  you 
I  was  only  waitin'  till  I  got  some  other  work!  " 

She  has  the  other  work  now.  She  has  had  it  for 
three  years. 

Thus  was  evolved  Dick's  tragedy :  Nan  once  more 
had  a  job. 


XVI 

A  CASE   OF  RETROGRESSION 

THROUGHOUT  the  letters  that  have  come  to 
me  concerning  the  girl  that  goes  under  in 
the  struggle  for  moral  existence,  and  through- 
out the  talks  that  I  have  had  with  people  inquiring 
into  this  subject,  two  questions  have  been  many  times 
repeated.  They  are  questions  that  take  various  forms, 
but  that  always  reduce  themselves  to  these  plain 
terms : 

"  Isn't  it  true  that  a  heavy  percentage  of  the  girls 
rescued  from  sex  slavery  or  sex  degradation  revert, 
after  a  greater  or  lesser  time,  to  their  former  low 
estate?" 

"And  if  this  is  true,  what  is  the  reason?" 

These  questions  I  think  that  I  should  here  answer. 

And  the  first  answer  is,  Yes. 

A  great  many  girls  classed  as  "  rescued  "  return  to 
their  previous  condition.  The  precise  percentage  it 
is  impossible  to  give,  because,  concerning  this  traffic, 
figures  are  everywhere  hard  to  procure,  and  in  the 
United  States,  owing  to  our  shocking  neglect  of  such 
matters,  are  almost  beyond  conjecture.  Still,  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  this  disease  is  like  most  other  dan- 
gerous diseases,  whether  physical  or  social — preven- 
tion is  hopeful,  cure  at  best  uncertain.  The  average 
of  life  in  the  business  is  five  years;  after  two  of  these 
years,  "  rescue  "  is  rare  and  most  often  but  tempo- 
194 


A  CASE  OF  RETROGRESSION        195 

rary.  And  of  the  others — of  those  that  are 
"  rescued  "  when  they  have  plied  their  trade  for  only 
a  month  or  six  months  or  a  year — a  large  number 
revert  to  their  former  estate. 

Why? 

So  many  men,  so  many  minds.  I  may  give  you 
only  the  answer  that,  without  predetermined  bias, 
was  forced  upon  me  by  what  I  saw  with  my  own 
eyes.  I  believe  that  society  has  made  these  girls  what 
they  are,  and  that  society,  once  they  have  changed, 
turns  them  back. 

Not  in  all  cases  of  retrogression.  One  is  dealing 
with  the  general  law,  not  with  its  individual  excep- 
tions. There  is  the  congenital  case.  There  are  the 
women  whose  descent  was  due  to  vanity,  to  drunken- 
ness, to  the  morphine  habit — to  some  taste  to  the  sat- 
isfaction of  which  the  descent  was  merely  a  means. 
Even  these  cases,  to  be  sure,  are  indirectly  the  fault 
of  social  conditions  that  breed  vicious  proclivities  as 
inevitably  as  a  dung-heap  breeds  flies.  But  they  are 
all  exceptional.  They  are  so  exceptional  as  to  be 
practically  negligible.  The  fault  does  not  tend  in 
that  direction.  For  the  same  reason,  the  failure,  in 
the  many  cases,  of  permanent  "  rescue  M  is  not  justly 
to  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  self-sacrificing  men  and 
women  that  are  giving  their  earnest  lives  to  "  rescue 
work."  The  failure  lies  at  the  door  of  us  all  as  a 
social  group,  because,  not  being  content  with  the 
wrong  that  we  have  already  done,  we  either  make  it 
well-nigh  impossible  for  a  "  rescued  girl  "  to  get  a 
decent  living  at  a  decent  wage  or  else  we  arc  90  un- 
charitable, so  irreligious,  as  always  to  regard  that 
girl  in  the  light  of  her  past. 


196     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

I  could  give  you  a  score  of  cases  in  point.  Any 
mission  worker  can  give  you  as  many.  All  the  gos- 
sips in  all  the  small  towns  will  be  glad  to  give  you 
more.  Here,  and  only  for  the  sake  of  illustration,  I 
give  you  one. 

I  go  back  in  my  memory  scarcely  a  year  and  recall 
the  second  floor  over  a  saloon  on  East  Nineteenth 
Street,  in  New  York,  not  far  west  of  Broadway. 
There  were  perhaps  a  dozen  tables  in  the  room,  and 
to  these  came — and  probably  still  come — the  street 
women  of  that  district;  not  with  their  prey  (or,  more 
properly,  their  temporary  masters),  but  alone,  to  rest 
in  the  pauses  of  their  walk,  to  meet  each  other,  and  to 
drug  themselves  against  the  instinctive  hatred  of 
what  they  must  soon  continue  to  do. 

On  this  night  that  I  remember,  the  room,  at  eleven 
o'clock,  was  nearly  empty  and  I  was  talking  with  a 
girl  at  the  farthest  table  in  the  darkest  corner.  She 
sat  there  in  the  favorite  attitude  of  her  kind — the 
scarcely  touched  glass  before  her,  her  elbows  at 
either  side,  her  hands  clasped  under  her  thin  chin. 
From  below  the  shadow  of  her  broad,  cheap  hat  with 
corn  flowers  on  it,  I  saw  her  tawny  hair  massed  like 
mined  gold.  Even  in  the  shadow  it  was  evident  that 
she  need  not  have  rouged  her  sunken  cheeks;  they 
were  hectic.  Under  her  eyes  there  were  dark  spots; 
her  red  mouth,  once  gentle,  was  bitter — bitterest 
when  she  smiled. 

She  understood  me.  She  had  known  me  long 
enough  to  understand  my  motive  for  asking  her  the 
question  that  I  had  just  asked  her — well  enough  to 
know  that  she  could  treat  me  merely  as  a  friend.  In 


A  CASE  OF  RETROGRESSION        197 

'brief,  she  was  satisfied  that  she  could  afford  to  be 
honest  with  me. 

"  So  I  went  to  the  institution,"  she  was  saying, 
"  and  stopped  there  as  long  as  they  thought  I  ought 
to  stop  there.  I  hadn't  been  in  the  business  because 
I  liked  it — who  is?  I'd  been  in  it  because  that  fellow 
Joe  had  taught  me  to  drink  at  a  dance  hall.  He 
taught  me  to  drink.  One  night,  of  course,  I  drank 
too  much.  When  I  woke  up,  I  knew  I  could  never  go 
back  home." 

She  took  a  sip  of  beer. 

"Why  not?"  I  asked. 

She  regarded  me  with  her  steady  gray  eyes. 

"I  was  afraid,"  she  answered  simply;  "and 
ashamed." 

"So  you  didn't  go  back?  " 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  I  didn't  go  back,"  she  said.  "  I  did  what  he  told 
me  to  do.  I  hated  it,  but  I  did  it.  At  first  I  kicked, 
but  he  beat  me.  I  couldn't  run  away.  Where'd  I  'a' 
lived  if  I  did?  I  hadn't  no  trade.  I'd  been  little,  I'd 
been  at  school,  so  I  hadn't  no  trade.  I'd  'a'  starved 
to  death  in  no  time." 

"  You  could  have  appealed  to  the  police." 

"  He  said  he  was  friends  with  the  police.  I  dunno. 
He  lied  a  good  deal,  of  course,  about  most  things. 
But  from  what  I  saw,  I  knowed  he  was  sure  friends 
with  one  or  two  of  'em." 

"  One  or  two  aren't  all.  Besides,  there  are  the 
missions." 

"  Well,  suppose  the  police  had  pinched  him.  What 
then?  It'd  all  be  in  the  papers.  I  tell  you,  I  was 
ashamed.  I  didn't  want  my  friends  to  know  no  more 


198    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

about  me.  Or  suppose  I'd  gone  to  the  mission.  He 
said — Joe  did — the  first  thing  they'd  do'd  be  to  send 
for  my  father.  I'd  made  trouble  enough  for  my 
father  already.  I  didn't  want  to  disgrace  my  people 
any  more'n  I  had  done.  Life's  too  short  for  that  sort 
of  thing." 

"  So,  rather  than  bring  public  shame  upon  your 
family,  you  brought  more  shame  upon  yourself?  " 

"  That's  about  it." 

She  spoke  simply.  There  was  no  consciousness  of 
sacrifice  in  her  tone,  nothing  of  the  heroic  attitude. 
She  was  talking  of  these  things  as  if  they  were  mat- 
ters of  course. 

"  So  then,"  she  took  up  the  thread,  "  I  went  to 
the  institution." 

14  You  mean  you  were  sent  there?  " 

"  Sure  I  was  sent." 

"  In  other  words,  you  were  first  arrested?  " 

"  Yes." 

"How?" 

"  The  way  it  always  happens.  Business  was  bad; 
times  was  hard.  There  wasn't  a  thing  doing  in  the 
part  of  town  where  the  cops  knew  me.  I  had  to  get 
the  money;  I  didn't  want  another  beating  up  by  Joe. 
So  I  tried  to  work  another  part  o'  town  where  the 
cops  was  strange.  A  fellow  winked  at  me.  He 
stopped  me  and  spoke  to  me.  He  drew  me  on,  and 
then  he  pinched  me." 

"A  plain-clothes  man?"  I  asked. 

The  faded  corn  flowers  in  her  hat  bobbed  assent. 

"  Central  Office,"  she  said. 

"  And  he  drew  you  on?  " 

"  Sure  he  did." 


A  CASE  OF  RETROGRESSION        199 

"  A  lovely  business !  "  I  commented. 

"  Oh,  I  dunno !  "  She  couldn't  see  it  my  way. 
"  Life's  too  short  to  fight  about  them.  Those  tricks 
is  what  they've  got  to  do  to  earn  their  living — just 
like  what  we  do  is  the  way  we've  got  to  earn 
ours." 

"  Very  like,"  said  I. 

But  she  was  in  no  mood  for  speculative  reflection. 

"  So,  as  I  told  you,  I  went  to  the  institution,"  she 
persisted.  "  It  was  third  offense  for  me.  I  didn't 
give  my  real  name  when  I  was  in  court  and  I  told 
the  institution  people  that  my  father  and  mother 
were  dead,  so  I  saved  any  trouble  for  my  folks." 

"  Why  didn't  you  think  of  that  plan  at  the  start, 
when  Joe  first  got  you  and  when  you  considered  ap- 
pealing to  the  police  on  your  own  behalf?  " 

"I  didn't  know  enough  then;  I  hadn't  learnt  to 
lie.  Besides,  Joe  would  'a'  told  them  the  truth  if  I'd 
got  him  pinched;  he'd  'a'  made  all  the  trouble  he 
could  for  my  folks;  and,  anyhow,  they'd  'a'  looked 
into  the  thing  more  careful  than  they  do  when  you're 
just  one  of  a  hundred  girls  run  in  front  of  the  magis- 
trate like  a  lot  of  sheep  at  a  slaughter  house." 

"  I  see.  Then,  at  last,  they  let  you  out  of  the 
institution?  " 

"  When  my  time  was  up — or  a  little  before.  I'd 
been  good.  I  liked  it  there — I'd  'a'  liked  anything 
better  than  the  streets.  I  learnt  to  sew  a  little  and 
to  sweep  and  wash  clothes.  I  even  learnt  to  cook 
some.  There's  no  end  of  things  you  can  learn  if 
you've  only  got  time,  ain't  they?  I  certainly  liked 
it.  Of  course  the  people  was  some  strict,  but  I  guess 
they  had  to  be  that;  and  you  couldn't  call  the  life 


200    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

a  dizzy  whirl  of  excitement.  But  I'd  had  about 
all  the  excitement  I  wanted,  thank  you.  For  a  while 
I  missed  my  drinks  something  terrible,  but  I  soon  got 
over  that,  and  then  I  was  real  happy.  I  worked  hard 
and  just  learned  and  learned  and  learned.  I  was  so 
good  they  shortened  my  time;  so  they  come  to  me 
and  says, 

*  You've  been  a  good  girl,  Sophie.' 

"  I  says,  '  Thank  you,  ma'am.' 

'  Yes,'  they  says,  *  you've  been  a  good  girl.  We 
think  you're  reformed.  You  can  go.  If  you  won't 
do  no  wrong  no  more,  you  can  go.' 

"'Go?1  says  I.     'Whereto?' 

"  *  Out,'  says  they. 

"  '  Then,'  I  says,  '  I'd  rather  stay.' 

"  *  But  you  can't,'  they  tells  me.  *  They  ain't  room. 
We're  overcrowded/  and  they's  lots  of  girls  that  are 
going  to  the  island  now  just  because  we  ain't  got 
the  room.' 

"  'Well,'  I  says,  *  if  I've  got  to  go,  I've  got  to; 
but  I  can't  make  no  promises  not  to  do  wrong.' 

"  The  woman  that  was  talking  to  me,  the  matron- 
like — an  awful  nice  woman,  she  was — got  kind  of 
shocked  at  that. 

"'Why  not?'  she  says. 

"  '  Because,'  I  tells  her,  '  I'm  afraid  of  starving, 
and  I'm  afraid  to  throw  myself  in  the  East  River, 
like  so  many  of  us  girls  do;  and  I  ain't  a  millionaire, 
so  I  can't  live  on  my  income — and  I  ain't  got  no  job.' 

"  '  Oh,  but,'  she  says,  '  we'll  get  you  a  job.' 

"  And  she  did  get  me  a  job,  and  it  was  a  nice  one 
— a  job  with  a  lady  that  lived  all  alone  in  apartments 
and  wasn't  very  well  and  needed  some  one  to  cook 


A  CASE  OF  RETROGRESSION       201 

and  do  all  the  work  and  just  all-round  take  care  of 
her. 

"  I  liked  that,  too.  The  work  was  hard,  but  I 
didn't  mind.  I  was  kind  of  glad  I  didn't  have  much 
chance  to  go  out  of  the  house,  for  I  was  afraid  of 
running  into  Joe.  Besides,  I  learnt  a  lot  more  while 
I  was  working  for  that  lady,  and  I  like  to  learn  things, 
don't  you  ? 

"  Of  course  I  was  scared  about  it  at  first. 

* '  Look  here !  '  I  says  to  the  matron  at  the  in- 
stitution; 'will  this  lady  that  you've  got  me  a  job 
with  know  all  about  me  ?  ' 

"  '  Oh,  yes,'  she  says,  '  she'll  know.  We  couldn't 
send  you  to  her  under  false  colors,'  she  says.  '  But 
she's  a  kind  lady;  she  wants  to  do  you  good,  and  she 
won't  never  throw  it  up  to  you.' 

u  Well,  she  didn't  throw  it  up  to  me — much,  and  I 
was  glad  of  that.  It's  pretty  hard  to  keep  doing 
right  when  you  know  that  the  people  you're  working 
for  are  all  the  time  thinking  how  you  used  to  do 
wrong.  I've  heard  since  from  other  girls  that  has 
went  through  what  I  went  through  that  the  ladies 
they  worked  for  worked  them  half  to  death,  and 
paid  them  almost  nothing  at  all,  and  all  the  time 
watched  them  suspicious-like,  as  bad  as  if  they'd  been 
in  jail.  They  say  they've  had  it  throwed  up  to  them 
all  the  time,  and  whenever  anything  was  mislaid  they 
was  accused  of  stealing  it,  till  they  was  just  made  so 
sick  and  discouraged  that  they  had  to  go  back  to  the 
old  ways  again.  But  my  lady,  she  wasn't  like  that. 

"  Of  course  sometimes  she'd  rub  it  in  a  bit.  If  I 
smashed  a  plate,  she'd  say,  '  Naturally  you  are  used 
to  doing  things  carelessly  ' — just  like  that,  in  a  way 


202    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

that  showed  me  what  she  was  thinking  about,  and 
that  hurt  a  lot.  But,  take  her  all  around,  she  was  a 
real  nice  lady,  and  I  was  happy  there. 

"  It  didn't  last  long,  though.  By  and  by  we  went 
out  to  Denver  for  her  health — she  took  me  along — 
and  out  there,  first  thing  I  knew,  she  died.  I  cer- 
tainly was  sorry  for  her." 

Sophie  paused.  She  looked  beyond  me,  into  the 
shadows  of  the  corner  in  that  little  room  over  an 
East  Nineteenth  Street  saloon.  Then  she  took  an- 
other drink.  She  tried  to  smile,  but  the  smile  went 
crooked;  it  was  as  if  she  were  drinking  to  a  safe 
voyage  in  Charon's  care  for  the  kind  lady  that  had 
only  once  in  a  while  rubbed  it  in  a  bit. 

"  Well,"  she  resumed,  "  there  I  was  in  Denver, 
out  of  a  job.  I  went  to  an  employment  agency,  and, 
just  about  the  time  my  money'd  run  out,  one  lady  be- 
gan to  talk  to  me  as  if  she  might  really  hire  me. 
I  remembered  that  stuff  that  the  matron  had  said 
about  not  being  under  false  colors  or  something,  so 
I  thought  perhaps  I'd  better  tell  this  woman  the 
truth. 

"  She  didn't  like  it.     She  didn't  like  it  a  little  bit. 

"  '  I  am  very  sorry  for  you,  my  poor  woman,'  she 
says;  *  but  you  did  quite  right  to  tell  me.  Of  course 
I  couldn't  have  anybody  in  my  family  that  has  been 
what  you've  been.' 

"That  was  bad  enough;  but  it  didn't  stop  there. 
This  lady  seen  a  friend  of  hers,  another  lady,  coming 
in  the  agency,  and  she  told  her,  and  the  other  lady 
was  mad  and  walks  right  up  to  the  boss  and  asks  him 
what  kind  of  a  place  he's  running,  anyhow — and  the 
boss  chucks  me  out. 


A  CASE  OF  RETROGRESSION       203 

"  I  saw  now  that  it  was  a  case  of  sailing  under 
false  colors  or  sinking  the  ship;  so  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  lie,  after  that.  I  went  round  from  house  to 
house.  Of  course  that  sort  of  thing  means  low  wages, 
if  you're  lucky  enough  to  get  any.  I  got  a  place  at 
last  on  almost  nothing  at  all. 

"  One  day  the  husband  of  the  woman  I  was  work- 
ing for  there  began  to  make  eyes  at  me.  He  came  in 
the  kitchen  and  asked  me  questions  about  New  York. 
He  said  he  used  to  live  in  New  York  before  he  was 
married,  and  he  asked  me  if  I  knew  this  place  or 
that — all  the  sort  of  places  that  I  did  use  to  know 
when  I  was  in  the  town.  I  happened  to  say  *  Yes/ 
not  thinking  what  it  meant,  and  then  he  tried  to  kiss 
me. 

"  *  You  get  out ! '  I  says. 

"  '  Don't  be  foolish,'  he  tells  me.  *  I'm  not  going 
to  hurt  you.' 

'  '  If  you  don't  let  up,'  I  says,  '  I'm  going  to 
hurt  you,  and  do  it  quick,  too.' 

He  kind  of  bristled  up  at  that. 

"  '  Look  here,'  he  says,  *  I'm  on  to  you,  and  if 
you're  not  nice  to  me  I'll  tell  my  wife  the  truth  about 
you.' 

1  '  Seems  to  me  there'd  be  something  to  tell  her 
about  you,  too,'  I  says, 

"  He  didn't  answer  nothing.  He  just  laughed 
and  grabbed  me." 

Sophie  paused  again. 

"Well?"  I  asked. 

"  Well,"  she  resumed,  "  I  slapped  his  face  for 
him,  and  he  told  his  wife  that  I'd  been  a  bad  girl. 
I  told  her  what  he'd  tried  on  with  me,  but  she  just 


204    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

thought  I  was  a  liar,   so  she  got  mad  and  fired 
me." 

"  Was  that  the  end?" 

"  Not  quite.  I  tried  a  lot  of  other  places,  but  I 
couldn't  get  a  job.  Near  all  of  them  wanted  recom- 
mendations, and  I  hadn't  none  that  was  any  good. 
The  lady  that  died'd  given  me  one,  but  it  was  pretty 
stale  by  this  time.  I  pretty  near  starved. 

"One  night,  on  the  street  (I  was  tired  out  and 
hungry),  I  seen  that  man  that  had  tried  to  kiss  me. 

"  '  Hello,  dear!  '  he  says.     *  Where  you  going?  ' 

"  '  Up  to  Glenwood  Springs  to  spend  the  summer,' 
I  says.  *  Where'd  you  think?  ' 

"  He  grinned  at  me. 
'  *  I  can  help  you  get  there,'  he  says. 

"  '  You  helped  me  lose  a  decent  job,'  says  I.  He'd 
put  an  idea  in  my  head.  '  I'm  played  out.  I'm  all 
in.  Can't  you  fix  it  up  somehow  so's  I  can  get  work?  ' 

"  *  You  don't  want  to  work,'  he  says. 

"  *  I  do,  too,'  says  I. 

"  But  he  just  grinned. 

"  '  You're  too  pretty,'  he  says.  '  Come  along  with 
me  and  I'll  give  you  some  money.' 

"  WTell,  I  was  dead  beat.  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
there  wasn't  any  chance  for  me,  that  people'd  never 
forgive  me.  He  said  he'd  give  me  enough  to  get 
me  to  Chicago  on  my  way  to  New  York.  I  went 
with  him,  but  next  morning  he  gave  me  only  enough 
to  get  to  Lincoln,  Neb.  When  I  reminded  him  of 
his  promise,  he  told  me  to  go  to  blazes." 

"  What  did  you  do?  "  I  inquired. 

"  I  went  to  blazes,"  she  answered  quietly. 

"Right  away?" 


A  CASE  OF  RETROGRESSION       205 

"  Not  direct.  I  went  there  by  way  of  Lincoln, 
Neb.  I  earned  enough  at  the  old  trade  in  Lincoln 
to  get  me  to  Chicago,  and  in  Chicago  I  tried  hard  to 
get  a  decent  job  again." 

"  But  that  man  in  Denver,"  I  interrupted,  "  the 
man  that  virtually  ruined  you  for  the  second  time — 
how  you  must  hate  him !  " 

She  shrugged  her  thin  shoulders. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know!"  she  said.  "Where's  the 
good  of  hating  people  ?  I  don't  like  to  hate  people." 

"  What  was  his  name?  " 

"  I  dunno,  and  I  wouldn't  never  tell  you  if  I  did. 
I  know  you;  you'd  make  trouble  for  him.  That's 
your  way.  Well,  it  ain't  mine.  I  don't  want  to 
make  trouble  for  nobody.  He  wasn't  no  worse  than 
most  men." 

I  gave  it  up. 

"So  you  went  to  Chicago?" 

"  Yep.  I  got  a  place  there  at  last  in  a  boarding- 
house  as  third  servant. 

"  I  stuck  to  it  for  a  while.  I  don't  pretend  I  liked 
it — all  the  men  boarders  tried  to  get  fresh,  and  then, 
because  the  men  liked  me,  all  the  women  was  sus- 
picious. Still,  I  kept  the  men  in  their  places  and 
I  held  on  to  the  job  till  a  new  boarder  come  to  the 
place.  He  turned  out  to  be  a  fellow  that  had  made 
love  to  me — made  regular  love  to  me — in  Lincoln — 
till  he  got  tired  of  it.  Well,  he  told  the  landlady 
about  me,  and  out  I  was  chucked." 

"And  then?"  said  I. 

"  Then  it  was  the  Denver  show  over  again — only 
worse.  When  I  got  down  and  out,  I  went  wrong. 
I  didn't  know  the  cops;  I  hadn't  no  pull;  I  was  run 


206    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

in  and  kicked  about — and  one  night  I  met  my  old 
fellow  Joe  down  on  Dearborn  Street.  He  was  going 
to  New  York." 

"  Did  you  run  away  from  him?  "  I  asked. 

The  grave  gray  eyes  looked  at  me  from  over  the 
shadows  where  lurked  the  tokens  of  the  White  Death. 
Sophie  gulped  the  rest  of  her  beer. 

"  I  must  be  hustling,"  she  said.  "  I've  got  to  do 
better  in  the  next  three  hours  than  I've  been  doing 
loafing  here." 

"Then  you  didn't  run  away  from  him?" 

"Runaway?  Who?  Me?  What  to?  Starva- 
tion? Not  much!  I'd  given  things  a  fair  chance. 
I  was  done,  I  was.  There  was  Joe.  Take  it  from 
me,  I  was  never  so  glad  to  see  anyone  in  all  my  life." 


XVII 

«« THOSE  THINGS  WHICH  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE 
DONE  » 

THE  Church  of  St.  Chrysostom  was  crowded 
by  its  usual  congregation.    The  massive  doors 
— a   gift   from   the   rector's  warden   and   a 
replica  of  the  doors  in  the  Church  of  St.  Anastasio 
in  Verona — shut  out  all  the  noises  of  Fifth  Avenue. 
Inside  the  only  sound  was  the  voice  of  the  priest 
among   the   candles,    pronouncing   the   Admonition. 
His  was  a  clear  voice,  steady  with  earnestness,  and 
it  reached  the  hearts  of  his  well-to-do  auditors: 

"...  confess  them  with  an  humble,  lowly, 
penitent,  and  obedient  heart ;  to  the  end  that  we  may 
obtain  forgiveness  of  the  same  ..." 

The  congregation  knelt  and  with  one  voice  re- 
peated the  General  Confession: 

"Almighty  and  most  merciful  Father;  we  have 
erred,  and  strayed  from  thy  ways  like  lost  sheep. 
We  have  followed  too  much  the  devices  and  desires 
of  our  own  hearts.  We  have  offended  against  thy 
holy  laws.  We  have  left  undone  those  things  which 
we  ought  to  have  done;  and  we  have  done  those 
things  which  we  ought  not  to  have  done ;  and  there  is 
no  health  in  us  .  .  ." 

The  service  went  its  usual  course.     The  Sunday 
was  the  Fourth  Sunday  in  Advent,  and  the  rector 
read  the  collect  for  that  day: 
207 


208     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  O  Lord,  raise  up  (we  pray  thee)  thy  power,  and 
come  among  us;  that  whereas,  through  our  sins  and 
wickedness,  we  are  sore  let  and  hindered  in  run- 
ning the  race  that  is  set  before  us,  thy  bountiful 
grace  and  mercy  may  speedily  help  and  deliver  us; 
through  the  satisfaction  of  thy  Son  our  Lord  ..." 
******* 

As  the  crowd  came  out  into  the  winter  sunshine  of 
the  Avenue,  Mrs.  Norton — she  was  the  wife  of  that 
W.  Barnabas  Norton  who,  as  rector's  warden,  had 
presented  the  studded  doorway  to  St.  Chrysostom's 
for  a  memorial  to  their  little  girl  that  had  died — 
found  herself  in  the  midst  of  an  anecdote.  She  was 
talking  to  Mrs.  Rutherford  Hemmingway,  her  dear- 
est friend. 

"  It  was  quite  dreadful,"  she  was  saying;  "but, 
really,  Alicia,  what  else  on  earth  was  there  for  me  to 
do  ?  How  the  girl  ever  got  into  my  service — how  the 
housekeeper  ever  failed  to  investigate  her  character 
and  recommendations — I  can't  for  the  life  of  me 
imagine.  I  was  frankly  angry  with  the  housekeeper 
about  it." 

"  Of  course  you  were,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Hem- 
mingway. 

"  And  I  don't  deny,"  pursued  Mrs.  Norton,  "  that 
Maud — I  think  her  name  was  Maud — was  a  satis- 
factory maid,  so  far,  of  course,  as  I  ever  had  a 
chance  to  observe  her.  But  when  the  policeman  on 
the  beat  came  to  Mr.  Norton  and  told  him  that  when 
he  had  been  on  the  Broadway  squad  a  year  before — 
the  policeman,  I  mean — he  had  arrested  this  girl 
for  street-walking  (only  fancy  how  horrible,  Alicia !), 
what  choice  did  I  have?  " 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE     209 

"None,"  replied  Mrs.  Hemmingway;  "none  at 
all. — Here  is  your  brougham,  Patricia. — You  could 
remember  only  that  you  had  to  perform  a  duty  to 
society." 

"  That  is  precisely  what  I  remembered,"  said  Mrs. 
Norton.  "  Barnabas  spoke  about  the  girl's  devo- 
tion to  our  little  Stephen  (it  was  eight  months  ago, 
and  Stephen  had  just  had  his  fifth  birthday,  I  recol- 
lect) ;  but  I  said  to  him:  '  My  dear,  there  is  nothing 
unusual  in  her  fondness  for  Stephen:  who  can  help 
being  fond  of  the  darling?  We  must  not  forget  that 
James  is  our  son,  too;  that  he  is  nineteen  years  old 
and  at  an  impressionable  age;  and,  above  all,  we 
must  not  forget  that  if  respectable  people  are  to  over- 
look such  things  as  this  girl  Maud  has  done,  there 
is  no  telling  what  will  happen  to  the  world.'  " 

They  were  in  the  carriage  now  and  were  rolling, 
softly  and  swiftly,  up  the  Avenue. 

"  If  you  had  said  any  less,"  declared  Mrs.  Hem- 
mingway, "  you  would  have  failed  in  your  duty." 

Mrs.  Norton's  plumed  hat  nodded  agreement. 

"  Exactly,"  said  she.  "  It  is  all  very  well  for  the 
rector  to  talk  of  reformation;  but  what  time  have  I 
to  reform  my  own  servants?  There  are  plenty  of 
institutions  and  missions  and  so  on  to  attend  to  such 
things.  I  am  sure  they  are  always  asking  for  money, 
and,  for  my  part,  I  make  a  point  of  contributing  al- 
most regularly.  One  Lent  I  went  twice  to  St.  Cecilia's 
Home  and  read  to  the  girls :  I  read  them  '  The 
Visits  of  Elizabeth.'  " 

Mrs.  Hemmingway  murmured  consolatory  com- 
mendation. 

"  Of  course,"  said  Mrs.  Norton,  "  I  didn't  want 


210     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

this  Maud  to  be  treated  too  badly;  but  I  was  angry 
at  the  housekeeper  for  allowing  such  an  awkward 
thing  to  occur,  and  so  I  neglected  to  give  her  any 
instructions  beyond  telling  her  the  facts  and  ordering 
her  to  dismiss  the  girl  immediately." 

"And  she  did  it?" 

"  Naturally." 

"  So  that  you  didn't  see  the  girl  again  until  last 
night?" 

"  Not  until  last  night.  We  were  leaving  the 
Herald  Square — the  Billy  Merton's  theater-party, 
you  know — and,  just  as  I  was  stepping  into  the 
motor,  there,  walking  into  the  light,  came  Maud. 
Alicia,  you  never  saw  such  a  change  in  any  woman  in 
your  life — not  even  in  Mrs.  Vanderdecken  Brown 
after  she  got  her  new  hair.  Maud's  cheeks  were 
rouged  the  color  of  red  ink;  her  eyes  were  full  of 
belladonna,  and  she  was  dressed  up  in  the  cheapest 
and  vulgarest  of  finery.  There  was  no  mistaking  her 
vocation — and,  what  was  worse,  no  mistaking  her  in- 
tention that  nobody  should  mistake  it.  It  was  too 
disgusting." 

"  How  awful,  Patricia !  " 

"  That  is  what  I  thought.  All  in  a  flash  I  remem- 
bered that  this  painted  woman  used  actually  to  live 
under  my  roof  and  fondle — think  of  it,  Alicia: 
fondle! — my  baby  boy.  She'd  been  bad  and  she  had 
gone  right  back  to  her  old  ways.  It  showed  plainly 
that  there  was  no  good  in  her.  I  was  suddenly 
afraid  that  she  might  have  the  impudence  to  speak  to 
me.  There  we  were,  face  to  face.  I  happened  to 
have  a  twenty-dollar  bill  in  my  opera-bag.  It  was 
sticking  out  of  the  top.  I  just  took  it  and  put  it  into 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE     2 1 1 

her  hand  before  anybody  of  our  party  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  see  what  I  was  doing." 


In  a  disordered  bedroom  on  the  third-floor  back 
of  a  dingy  West  Twenty-ninth  Street  boarding-house 
(its  landlady  called  it  a  boarding-house)  a  few 
nights — or,  rather,  a  few  mornings — later,  a  girl 
sat  alone,  evidently  waiting  for  the  coming  of  some- 
one whose  coming  she  fearedL 

She  was  still  a  pretty  girl.  Her  cheeks,  sufficiently 
colored  to  hide  their  pallor,  had  not  yet  lost  all  their 
roundness;  the  line  of  her  full  lips  had  not  yet  be- 
come hard.  Her  hair,  which  had  always  been  too 
black  for  tinting,  was  so  thick  as  to  be  almost  lux- 
uriant; what  privation  had  stolen  from  the  contours 
of  her  figure,  artifice,  beneath  the  poor,  showy  dress 
that  covered  it,  supplied;  and  if  her  eyes  had  lost 
a  zest  that  drugs  could  no  longer  simulate,  they  had 
gained  an  animal  appeal  that  had  an  attraction  of 
its  own. 

The  room  was  not  a  pleasant  one.  The  crooked 
shade  that  was  drawn  across  the  single  window 
hid  an  ugly  court,  beyond  which  was  a  church-tower 
with  a  clock  that  struck  the  half-hours.  The  wall- 
paper was  so  faded  that  its  original  design  was  lost, 
and  the  only  decorations  were  one  or  two  unframed, 
highly-colored  prints  from  the  Sunday  supplement  of 
a  sensational  newspaper  and  a  garish  calendar  issued 
in  the  interests  of  the  nearest  wholesale  liquor-shop. 
On  a  rickety  wash-stand  was  a  cracked  pitcher  in  a 
cracked  basin;  across  the  door  that  led  into  a  neigh- 
boring room  there  had  been  drawn  a  ramshackle 


212     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

bureau,  with  a  clouded  mirror  and  with  drawers  that 
would  not  wholly  shut.  The  bed — the  girl  was  sitting 
on  the  bed — was  unmade. 

A  shambling  step  sounded  on  the  stairs  and  a 
heavy  hand  fell,  as  lightly  as  it  could,  upon  the 
door. 

"  Maud,"  said  a  thick,  low  voice. 

The  girl  on  the  bed  started.  She  looked  about  her 
as  if  seeking  for  a  corner  in  which  to  hide. 

"  Maud,"  repeated  the  voice,  "  are  you  in  there?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  girl.     "  That  you,  Mart?  " 

"  Sure  it's  me.    Is  it  all  right  ?    Can  I  come  in  ?  " 

"  Come  ahead,  Mart." 

The  door  opened,  and  there  entered  a  man  that 
had  to  stoop  to  do  so.  He  was  a  raw-boned  man, 
thin  except  for  a  swelling  abdomen,  and  he  wore  a 
suit  of  some  light  checkered  material.  He  carried  a 
warm  overcoat  over  his  arm,  and  in  the  purple  tie 
at  the  base  of  his  thick  neck  was  thrust  a  constellation 
of  paste  diamonds  in  the  form  of  a  horseshoe. 

He  sat  on  the  only  chair — a  creaking  chair  placed 
directly  under  the  flaring  gas-jet  beside  the  window — 
and,  with  a  loud  grunt,  crossed  his  legs. 

"Well?"   he  said  interrogatively. 

He  had  a  thick,  coarse  face,  with  an  obtruding 
chin  and  a  bulging  forehead  from  which  the  low- 
growing  hair — oily  hair — was  parted  in  a  ridiculous 
wave.  His  shaggy  eyebrows  hung  far  over  the  dull 
coals  that  were  his  eyes.  His  nose  showed  that  it  had 
been  at  least  once  broken  and  never  properly  set,  and 
his  lips,  from  which  a  much-chewed  cigar  hung 
limply,  were  divided  between  a  natural  tendency  to 
loll  and  an  habitual  sneer. 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE     213 

The  girl  looked  at  him  and  away  quickly — like  a 
dog. 

"Well?"  he  repeated.  "Can't  you  talk? 
Where's  the  coin?  Dig  up.  Come  on,  now:  dig 
up !  "  He  seemed  to  realize  the  canine  quality  of 
her  movement :  he  spoke  to  her  as  some  human  beings 
speak  to  dogs. 

Maud  raised  her  skirt,  took  a  handful  of  money 
from  her  stocking,  handed  him  the  money  and  drew 
sharply  away. 

"  It — it  ain't  much,"   she   faltered. 

The  man  looked  at  it,  holding  it  in  his  extended, 
dirty  palm.  Some  of  it  fell  through  his  thick  fingers 
and  dropped  to  the  floor.  His  brow  darkened. 

"  Where's  the  rest?  "  he  asked. 

"  That's  all  I  got,  Mart." 

"I  said:  where's  the  rest?" 

"That's  all,  Mart.  Honest "  The  girl 

shrank  from  his  glowering  eyes,  with  an  arm  drawn 
up  to  shield  her  face.  "  Honest,  that's  every  cent 
of  it." 

The  man  grunted.  He  heaved  one  shoulder 
high,  while  he  thrust  the  money  into  his  pocket. 

"  You're  a  liar,"  he  said  quietly. 

»  Mart " 

"  You're  a  liar.  Why,  the  other  night  some  fool 
give  you  a  twenty-dollar  bill !  Here  it  is  Christmas- 
time, and  the  streets  just  naturally  full  of  drunks, 
and  you  ask  me  to  believe  that  you've  only  taken  in 
seven  dollars  for  a  night's  work.  Seven  dollars! 
How  d'you  think  I'm  goin'  t'  live,  huh?  " 

He  walked  over  to  the  bed  and  calmly  slapped 
the  girl  in  the  face  with  his  heavy,  open  hand. 


214    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

She  fell  backward,  sobbing. 

"  Come  on,  come  on  1 "  he  commanded. 
"Cough!" 

"That's  all  there  is,"  sobbed  the  girl.  "Honest, 
honest,  I  didn't  get  another  cent." 

Martin  stepped  away  with  a  litheness  that  you 
would  not  have  suspected  in  a  man  of  his  size.  He 
took  off  his  coat,  folded  it  neatly,  and  laid  it  on  a 
chair. 

"  Now  then,"  he  said,  "  you  lie  still.  I'm  goin' 
to  search  you.  If  I  find  you're  holdin'  out  on  me, 
I'll  drive  every  tooth  you've  got  down  your  throat. 
If  I  find  you're  tellin'  the  truth,  I'll  know  you've 
been  lazy  and  I'll  give  you  a  beatin'-up  worth  re- 
memberin'." 

He  proceeded  to  keep  his  word. 

Maud,  you  will  observe,  was  a  wicked  woman. 
She  was  one  of  those  shameless  persons  that  you  hear 
whispered  about — rarely  honestly  and  openly  de- 
scribed. This  miserable,  unhealthy  room  was  what 
is  called  a  gilded  palace  of  vice.  Those  bedraggled, 
insufficient  clothes  were  the  purple  silks  and  fine  linen 
of  evil.  That  hard,  tumbled  bed  was  the  downy 
couch  of  her  slothful  ease.  The  brass  ring  on  the 
third  finger  of  her  left  hand  was  the  elaborate 
jewelry  of  the  wrongdoer.  Her  emaciated,  death- 
sentenced  body  was  the  pampered  piece  of  silken- 
skinned  flesh  that  you  hear  so  frequently  anathemat- 
ized. That  seven  dollars,  her  entire  earnings,  which 
she  had  handed  over  to  her  owner,  represented  the 
enormous  wages  of  sin,  and,  when  they  went  into 
Mart's  pocket,  they  went  where  nearly  all  such  wages 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE     2 1 5 

go.  Her  life  was  the  easy,  care-free,  well-fed,  well- 
housed,  well-clothed,  happy  life  of  the  street-woman 
— including  the  blows. 

You  have  heard  a  good  deal  about  the  easy,  merry 
time  that  these  bad  women  have.  Oddly  enough, 
Maud  didn't  enjoy  it. 

Oddly  enough,  too,  she  hadn't  wanted  to  begin 
it;  hadn't  wanted  to  continue  in  it;  hadn't  wanted  to 
go  back  to  it  from  the  service  of  Mrs.  W.  Barnabas 
Norton's  housekeeper. 

Maud  had  worked  in  a  shirtwaist  factory,  and 
when  the  factory — owing  to  improper  building-laws 
— had  burned,  Maud  was  unlucky  enough  not  to  be 
among  the  sixty  young  girls  that  were  killed.  She 
had  gone  a  long  time  without  employment.  Then 
she  had  got  a  job,  at  five  dollars  a  week,  in  another 
factory.  On  five  dollars  a  week  she  had  managed 
somehow  to  keep  alive  until  there  was  a  lock-out. 
Then,  one  evening  when  she  was  faint  from  starva- 
tion, Mart,  whose  business  it  was  to  watch  young 
women  that  were  hungry,  had  "  picked  her  up  " — 
this  is  the  plain  phrase  for  it — and  offered  her  a 
supper.  Whisky  on  an  empty  stomach  had  done  the 
rest. 

Yet,  one  day,  Maud,  with  her  strength  partially 
renewed,  had  run  away.  She  got  a  job  as  a  servant. 
She  even,  at  last,  got  into  the  eminently  respectable 
household  of  Mrs.  W.  Barnabas  Norton — and  she 
left  that  household  in  the  form  and  manner  here- 
inbefore described. 

What  happened?  This  happened — the  third-floor 
back  in  Twenty-ninth  Street;  the  repetition  of  the 
old  life  happened,  the  blows:  Mart.  She  had  been 


216    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

dismissed  without  a  recommendation;  she  could  get 
no  other  place  as  a  servant;  she  could  get  no  other 
place  as  a  factory-hand.  The  idea  of  a  mission  or  a 
"  rescue  home  "  never  occurred  to  her.  She  was  too 
discouraged.  In  the  language  of  the  street,  she  went 
back. 

Mrs.  Norton  had  done  nothing — really.  She 
had — really — only  refrained  from  doing  something. 
Why  not?  Mrs.  W.  Barnabas  Norton  is  a  busy 
woman,  and  Maud  was  a  bad  girl. 

"  Now  then,"  said  Mart. 

He  was  perspiring  profusely,  but,  as  he  resumed 
his  seat  on  the  creaking  chair,  he  tilted  himself 
against  the  wall  with  the  relieved  sigh  of  duty  done. 
He  looked  at  the  convulsive  bundle  of  clothes  on  the 
bed:  Martin  also  had  performed  an  obligation  to 
society. 

"  Now  then,"  he  resumed,  "  I  want  you  to  listen 
here.  Are  you  on?  " 

The  bundle  of  clothes  sobbed  assent. 

"  Me  an'  Shorty  Ve  got  a  little  game,  an'  you've 
got  to  help  out.  See?" 

Again  the  bundle  sobbed  in  a  maiyier  that  assured 
him  of  its  attention. 

"  Shorty's  got  hold  of  a  rich  guy  from  up  the 
Avenue — a  kid  he  is — that  wants  to  see  the  town. 
Shorty  says  the  kid  always  has  a  wad  in  his  clothes. 
Shorty  says  he'll  like  as  not  have  extra  on  Christmas 
Eve,  an'  if  the  thing's  worked  right  we  can  easy  get 
his  check  for  more.  Well,  the  kid  ain't  ever  seen 
me — ner  won't  till  I'm  good  an'  ready — but  Shorty'll 
tell  him  he's  got  somethin'  worth  while  on  tap. 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE  2 1 7 

Shorty'll  say  it's  a  married  woman  with  a  husband 
on  the  L  night-service,  an'  '11  say  he's  fixed  it  up — 
Shorty  has — fer  the  kid,  with  the  wife.  Shorty'll 
direct  the  kid  up  here.  The  kid'll  come.  You  be 
mighty  sweet  to  him.  I'll  hammer  on  the  door. 
The  door'll  be  locked.  Then  me  for  a  star-entrance 
by  this  here  door  back  o'  the  bureau.  Me,  the  out- 
raged husband  with  a  gun. — All  the  money  the  kid's 
got  an'  all  he  can  write  checks  for.  It's  all  bein' 
fixed  fer  to-morrow  night  at  eleven-thirty :  Christmas 
Eve.  Understand?" 

Apparently  the  girl  did  understand.  At  any  rate, 
she  sobbed  herself  to  sleep  at  last.  She  slept  in  her 
clothes  and  did  not  wake  till  the  gray  light  of  the 
December  morning  was  peeping  around  the  edges  of 
the  crooked  window-shade.  Then,  when  she  had 
listened  for  a  while  to  the  irregular  snoring  of  Mart, 
she  stole,  with  infinite  timidity,  from  bed  and  un- 
dressed and  rubbed  her  bruises  and  lay  down  in  her 
chemise  to  get  what  rest  was  left  her.  Mart,  how- 
ever, had  wrapped  the  blanket  about  his  sturdy 
form,  so  she  shivered  a  good  deal.  She  did  not  dare 
to  shiver  much,  for  fear  that  she  should  wake  him. 

She  lay  there,  staring  at  the  seamed  ceiling,  and 
wondering,  very  vaguely,  what  was  the  matter  with 
the  world.  She  did  not  regret  what  she  had  done 
in  it — she  was  past  that  sort  of  thing;  she  was  a  bad 
girl — she  regretted  only  the  consequences  to  herself. 
She  did  not  look  forward  with  especial  shrinking  to 
the  badger-game  that  Mart  had  planned  for  Christ- 
mas Eve;  she  shrank  only  from  the  thought  of  what 
Mart  would  do  to  her  if  she  should  somehow  bungle 
her  part  in  it — she  thought  that  he  would  likely 


218     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

enough  beat  her  to  the  brink  of  extermination.  And 
she  wondered  why  these  things  should  be  so. 

Would  there  ever  be  a  time  when  they  were  not  so? 
She  doubted  it.  Would  there  ever  be  a  time  when 
the  Martins  would  not  make  their  livings  by  exploit- 
ing those  Mauds  who  could  not  find  a  chance  to  be 
exploited  in  another  way?  It  seemed  so  unneces- 
sary. It  seemed  such  a  waste  of  human  energies, 
of  human  lives  that  the  world  had  other  need  of — 
that  the  world  demanded  and  could  not  get. 

She  had  glimpses  of  this — fragmentary,  distorted 
glimpses,  always  through  the  clouded  glasses  of  her 
own  wants.  The  world  was  doing  much ;  but  it  was 
leaving,  of  all  that  it  could  do  and  ought  to  do,  so 
much — so  very  much — undone.  The  world  resem- 
bled Mart.  Like  Mart  it  was  asleep,  and  moaning 
as  it  slept. 


Long  before  half-past  eleven  on  Christmas  Eve 
the  room  had  been  made  ready.  The  crooked  win- 
dow-shade had  been  straightened;  the  cracked  water- 
jug  and  basin  had  been  replaced  by  new  ones;  a 
couple  of  framed  prints  had  been  hung  where  the 
grotesques  from  the  Sunday  supplements  were  form- 
erly tacked,  and  the  bureau,  its  drawers  all  jammed 
into  place,  was  dragged  a  few  inches  farther  from 
the  door  that  it  was  supposed  to  hide. 

Maud  sat  on  the  single  chair — they  had  decided 
not  to  have  two  chairs — and,  apathetically,  waited. 
They  had  bought  her  a  new  frock — a  loose,  pale- 
blue  wrapper — and  the  color  suited  her.  Her  black 
hair  flowed  over  her  shoulders  and  the  light,  turned 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE     2 1 9 

rather  low,  was  not  sufficiently  strong  to  betray  her. 

Mart  tapped  on  the  hidden  door. 

"All  right?"  he  asked.  He  did  not  have  to 
raise  his  voice  much :  the  door  was  thin. 

"  All  right,"  Maud  answered. 

"  I'll  stay  here  till  he  comes,"  said  Mart.  "  Then 
I'll  wait  twenty  minutes  and  then  rattle  at  the  other 
door.  Be  sure  he  pipes  you  lockin'  that  one  an'  be 
sure  you're  half  scared  to  death  when  I  call.  Then 
I'll  run  back  here  an'  come  in  by  this  way,  gun  an5 
all." 

She  reflected  that  she  would  not  have  to  sham 
fear  of  Mart  in  any  circumstances. 

"  It  ain't  loaded,  that  gun?"  she  quavered. 

She  heard  Mart  laugh. 

"  Sure  it's  loaded.  I  don't  want  my  bluff  called. 
Maybe  I'll  have  to  let  him  have  one — just  a  little 
high  one,  you  know,  to  jolt  him  up  some." 

"But,  Mart " 

"  None  o'  that  now."  He  had  been  in  high  spirit- 
ous  humor,  but  his  tone  grew  ugly,  more  ugly  even 
than  common,  at  any  hint  of  protest;  it  was  like  the 
warning  growl  of  a  feeding  beast  whose  prey  is 
threatened.  "  None  o'  your  lip.  If  you  don't  put 
this  thing  through  without  side-steppin',  I'll  let  you 
have  some  o'  the  gun,  an'  I  won't  shoot  high,  neither. 
It's—  Hshsh !  Here  they  come !  " 

His  voice  stopped,  and  Maud,  alone  in  the  narrow 
bedroom,  heard  the  front  door  close  at  the  other 
end  of  the  house.  She  heard  feet  ascend  the  stairs 
and  traverse  the  hall — a  heavy,  familiar  pair  that 
knew  their  way  in  the  darkness,  and  another  pair, 
lighter,  uncertain,  that  followed. 


2±o    THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

Someone  knocked  at  the  door. 

"  Come  in,"  said  Maud. 

An  ugly,  dark  face — a  face  marked  by  a  yellow 
scar  from  lip  to  eye — was  thrust  through  the  barely 
opened  door. 

"  Hello,  Shorty,"  said  Maud. 

"  Go«d-evenin',  Mrs.  Smith,"  said  Shorty.  He 
•did  not  come  in.  "  Everythin'  clear?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Maud. 

Shorty  winked  wickedly. 

"Husband  gone?"  he  asked. 

"  Yes,  he's  gone  this  half-hour  an'  more,"  said 
Maud,  repeating  a  lesson. 

"  Well,  we  thought  we'd  be  on  the  safe  side," 
said  Shorty :  "  he's  got  such  a  temper  that  there  hus- 
band o'  yourn.  Here's  the  young  gentleman  I  told 
you  about." 

"  Bring  him  in." 

"  I'll  let  him  come  in  alone;  I  gotta  meet  Hoskins 
over  to  the  corner.  So  long!  " 

Shorty  flung  wide  the  door;  shoved  a  lad  through 
the  opening,  and  closed  the  door  behind  him.  They 
could  hear  Shorty's  footsteps  rumbling  down  the  hall. 

The  visitor  was  a  delicately  built,  anaemic  boy  of 
nearly  twenty.  He  had  a  narrow  forehead,  topped 
by  tow-colored  hair.  His  pale  eyes  were  shifty  and 
watery,  and  he  had  a  nervous  twitch  to  his  thin  lips. 
He  was  like  a  thousand  lads  of  his  environment  in 
every  large  city:  precocious,  perverted,  neurotic. 

Maud  gasped.  The  trade  smile  that  she  had  pre- 
pared for  him  stiffened  on  her  lips.  She  was  alone 
with  James,  the  eldest  son  of  Mrs.  W.  Barnabas 
Norton. 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE     221 

"  You !  "  she  whispered.    "  You  I  " 

But  James,  though  he  was  surprised,  was  by  no 
means  disconcerted.  He  tossed  his  silk  hat  on  the 
bed  and,  producing  a  cigarette  from  a  gold  case,  pro- 
ceeded to  smoke. 

"Well,  well,  well!"  he  laughed.  "Who'd 
a-thought  it?  Didn't  know  you  were  married, 
Maud." 

"  I — I'm "  stuttered  the  woman. 

James  reached  out  a  gloved  hand  and  patted 
her  cheek.  The  rouge  hid  a  deeper  pallor  than 
usual. 

"This  is  luck!"  said  James.  "Little  stand-off, 
prim,  touch-me-not  Maudie.  Well,  well!  Welcome 
to  our  city !  " 

He  sat  down  on  the  bed  and,  suddenly  encircling 
her  waist,  dragged  her  beside  him. 

Her  heart  hammered  in  her  breast.  She  remem- 
bered the  Norton  home;  the  Norton  baby  that  she 
had  loved — the  one  living  creature  that  she  had 
loved  without  receiving  a  wound  in  return — and  she 
remembered  Mart  in  the  next  room,  with  the  re- 
volver. 

"Don't!"  she  whispered.  "Listen  a  min- 
ute  " 

"Not  a  second!"  laughed  Norton  loudly.  He 
thrust  out  his  legs  and  knocked  his  heels  together  in 
his  huge  enjoyment  of  his  joke.  "  I've  got  on  to 
your  curves  at  last,"  he  said.  "  I've  found  you  out, 
Maudie.  I  always  tried  to  give  you  the  glad  eye  at 
home ;  but  you'd  pretend  not  to  notice ;  and  then  you 
went  away,  nobody  seemed  to  know  why,  and  here — 
well,  here  we  are,  aren't  we?" 


222     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

He  tried  to  kiss  her,  but  she  pushed  his  face  away. 
She  glanced  over  her  shoulder  at  the  other  door. 

"  Stop  I  "  she  whispered.  She  was  trying  to  gain 
time;  trying  to  think.  "  Of  course  I  wouldn't  look 
at  you  there,"  she  added  in  a  louder  voice  to  win  a 
moment  more  and  to  satisfy  the  listener  at  the  door. 
Why  hadn't  Mart  told  her  the  name  of  his  victim? 
Why  had  she  come  to  think  nothing  of  names?  Why 
had  she  permitted  her  sentimental  respect  for  her 
former  employers  to  keep  her  from  mentioning  their 
name  to  Mart?  "  Of  course  I  wouldn't  look  at  you 
there,"  she  found  herself,  with  significant  emphasis, 
repeating. 

"But  now— eh,  Maudie?"  laughed  Norton. 
"  How  about  now?  Things  are  different  now,  aren't 
they?" 

She  looked  again  at  the  door.  She  shivered.  She 
couldn't  think,  yet  she  must  gain  time. 

"  Kiss  me !  "  commanded  Norton. 

"No,  no!" 

"  Come  on.    What  you  afraid  of?  " 

"  Nothing.  Of  course,  I  ain't  afraid  of  any- 
thing." 

"  Then,  come  on." 

She  raised  her  cold  face  to  him  and,  trembling,  al- 
lowed him  to  kiss  her  on  the  mouth.  She  was  to 
have  twenty  minutes;  it  seemed  as  if  thirty  had  al- 
ready passed. 

"What  you  shaking  about?"  demanded  Norton. 

"  Hush !  "  she  whispered,  and  then  said,  in  a  more 
normal  tone:  "I'm  just  thinkin'  what  if  my  hus- 
band'd  come  in." 

"  Well,  I'm  not,"  said  Norton.     "  I'm  thinking 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE     223 

this  is  a  pretty  raw  deal.  Do  you  think  I'm  going 
to  do  all  the  kissing  and  you  not " 

"Hush!"  she  pleaded. 

"  I  won't  hush.    I  tell  you " 

"  Then,  here !  "  cried  Maud.     "  And  here !  " 

She  flung  her  arms  about  him  and  kissed  him,  with 
calculated  vigor,  upon  either  cheek.  And  then,  with 
her  mouth  against  his  ear,  she  began  to  whisper : 

"  Listen.  Don't  answer.  Don't  talk.  Listen.  You 
must  get  out.  You  must  go  now  and  go  quick.  Don't 
ask  why.  Go.  And  once  you've  started,  you  must 
run — run !  " 

He  drew  back  from  her,  his  mouth  twitching,  his 
eyes  large. 

"Why?"  he  asked. 

She  scarcely  understood  the  question. 

"  Go !  "  she  whispered.  "  I  told  you  not  to  ask 
why." 

"  But  why?  "  he  demanded  loudly. 

"  Because — because  your  people  were  so  kind  to 
me " 

"Oh,  rot!" 

"  Because,  I  loved  that  little  baby-brother  of  yours 
so  that  I — that  I " 

"  Get  out,  Maudie.  Don't  talk  that  sort  of  gush; 
it  don't  go  with  all  this  stage-setting,  you  know." 

"  Then — then  because  your  mother " 

"  Don't  talk  about  her,   please." 

She  tried  to  quiet  him  by  a  lying  reason. 

"  Because  your  mother  met  me  on  the  street  the 
other  night  and  gave  me  twenty  dollars,"  she 
whispered. 

Norton  laughed  again. 


224     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

"  I'm  going  to  give  you  twenty-five,"  said  he. 
"  See  here  " — he  grew  angry  now  and  his  voice  rose 
higher — "  why  aren't  you  nice  to  me?  Out  with  it, 
now!  Why?" 

It  seemed  to  her  that  he  nearly  shouted.  She 
glanced  again,  involuntarily,  toward  the  door — the 
door  behind  which,  revolver  in  hand,  stood  Mart, 
who  had  told  her  to  be  mighty  sweet  to  her  visitor 
and  had  threatened  her  life. 

"  Go !  "  she  pleaded. 

"  I  won't  go !  "  yelled  Norton.  "  What  you  look- 
ing behind  that  bureau  for?  Yah ! "  His  mouth 

twitched;  his  jaw  dropped.  "  It's — it's  a  trap!  "  he 
shrieked.  "  It's  a  badger-game !  It's " 

"  Yes;  yes;  yes!  "  she  cried.  She  didn't  care  now. 
He  was  the  son  of  her  benefactress;  the  baby's 
brother.  With  a  quick  access  of  nervous  strength, 
she  caught  him  by  the  shoulders,  whirled  him  about, 
and  hurled  him  through  the  door  by  which  he  had 
entered. 

He  must  have  understood  her  then,  for  she  heard 
him  crash  down  the  hall  and  down  the  stairs.  She 
was  conscious  that  Mart,  out  of  the  darkness,  hurdled 
by  her  with  an  oath ;  but  she  heard  Norton  reach  the 
front  door  first  and  bang  it  after  him. 

Then  she  heard  Mart  slowly  reascend  the  stairs. 

He  came  into  the  little  room,  and  she  shrank  to 
the  farthest  corner  at  the  sight  of  him.  He  hacl 
been  drinking  all  day  against  the  prospective  activi- 
ties of  this  evening.  Now  he  was  not  hot  with  anger; 
he  was  cold  with  it.  He  held  the  revolver  in  his  huge 
hand.  He  was  smiling,  and  when  she  saw  the  smile 
on  his  thick  lips,  she  cried  out. 


THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  HAVE  DONE     225 

"  Get  up,"  said  Mart. 

She  got  up. 

"  I  heard  you,"  said  Mart. 

The  clock  in  the  church  steeple  began  to  strike, 
the  chimes  to  ring.  It  was  Christmas  morning. 

She  stretched  out  her  thin  arms  to  him. 

"Mart!    Oh,  Mart " 

Mart  slowly  raised  the  revolver. 

"  Say  your  prayers,"  he  commanded — "  fer  the  last 
time." 

The  chimes  rang  forth  their  message  of  peace  on 
earth  and  good  will  to  men.  They  rang  so  loudly 
that  the  policeman  on  the  corner  heard  nothing 
else. 


They  never  caught  Mart.  It  was  only  a  back- 
alley  crime,  so  the  police  were  not  greatly  worried, 
and  the  papers  that  are  read  by  the  congregation  of 
St.  Chrysostom's  did  not  so  much  as  mention  it. 

St.  Chrysostom's  had,  nevertheless,  a  most  suc- 
cessful Christmas  service.  Mrs.  Rutherford  Hem- 
mingway  said  she  had  never  heard  a  better  Te  Deum 
better  sung  not  even  at  St.  George's  Grosvenor 
Square. 

Mrs.  Norton  agreed  with  her.  Mrs.  Norton  knew 
nothing  of  the  murder,  either  then  or  later.  She 
was  not  concerned  in  it.  She  had  done  nothing — 
really.  She  had — really — only  refrained  from  doing 
something. 

She  joined  devoutly  in  the  General  Confession: 

"Almighty  and  most  merciful  Father;  we  have 
erred,  and  strayed  from  thy  ways  like  lost  sheep. 


226     THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG 

We  have  followed  too  much  the  devices  and  desires 
of  our  own  hearts.  We  have  offended  against  thy 
holy  laws.  We  have  left  undone  those  things  which 
we  ought  to  have  done  ..." 

Mrs.  W.  Barnabas  Norton  is  a  busy  woman,  and 
Maud  had  been  a  bad  girl. 


The  Lure  of  the 
Flame 

By  MARK  DANGER 


The  tale  has  been  told  in  other 
books,  like  "My  Little  Sister,"  and 
in  many  pamphlets  and  from  many 
platforms,  but  never  told  with  the 
poignancy  Mark  Danger  gives  it. 
Nobody  can  be  unmoved  by  its  terrible 
significance.  A  very  remarkable 
literary  achievement,  for  it  touches 
pitch  boldly,  forcibly,  without  shrink- 
ing, yet  is  not  defiled. 

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ROMANCE 

A  Novel  by  ACTON  DAVIES 

From  Edward  Sheldon'*  Play  Fatty  Illustrated 


Filled  to  overflowing  with  the  Emotional 
Glamor  of  Love,  "Romance"  is  the  Ro- 
mance of  a  Famous  Grand  Opera  Singer 
and  a  Young  Clergyman.  Despite  their 
different  callings  they  are  drawn  together 
by  a  profound  and  sincere  love.  But  the 
woman  has  drained  the  cup  of  life  so  deeply 
that  her  marriage  to  the  Minister  is  imposs- 
ible. In  the  hour  of  trial  she  rises  to  sub- 
lime heights  of  self-denial,  proving  herself 
stronger  than  the  man. 

"Scores  a  sensational  hit." — A^.  Y.  Evening  Sun. 
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THE  WHIP 

By  RICHARD  PARKER 

NOVELIZED  FROM  CECIL  RALEIGH'S  GREAT  ENG- 
LISH MELODRAMA  OF  THE  SAME  NAME 


The  story  that  has  thrilled  London  for  two 
solid  years  now  appears  in  America  for  the 
first  time,  giving  a  true  picture  of  the  notor- 
ious entanglements  in  which  the  British 
sporting  nobility  are  often  involved.  But 
in  spite  of  the  intrigue  and  fraud  practiced 
by  Capt.  Sartoris  and  his  adventuress  friend 
the  story  ends  the  way  you  wish  it  to. 
Critics  all  agree  that  "THE  WHIP"  con- 
tains more  thrills  to  the  page  than  any  other 
novel  published  for  years. 

Beautifully  illustrated  with  pictures  of  real  people,  as  they 
appear  in  the  play. 

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A  WORLD 
OF  WOMEN 

By  J.  D.  BERESFORD 


What  would  be  the  result  if  nearly 
all  the  men  in  the  world  were  sudden- 
ly exterminated  ? 

The  author  has  conceived  an  amaz- 
ing situation,  which  he  works  out  to 
a  surprising  finish. 

A  most  important  contribution  to 
ultra-modern  literature. 

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THE  FRUIT 
OF  FOLLY 

A  Novel  by  VIOLET  CRAIG 


Throbbing  with  human  emotion, 
this  book  is  the  record  of  one  woman's 
mistake. 

The  principal  scenes  are  laid  in 
present-day  New  York,  and  no  more 
powerful  commentary  on  life  in  our 
big  centers  has  been  written  in  a  long- 
time. 

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FAMOUS   BOOKS  BY 
WELL  KNOWN  AUTHORS 

THE  DANGEROUS  AGE,  by  Karin  Michaelis 

Here  is  a  woman's  soul  laid  bare  with  absolute  frankness. 
Europe  went  mad  about  the  book,  which  has  been  translated  into 
twelve  languages.  It  betrays  the  freemasonry  of  womanhood. 

MY  ACTOR   HUSBAND,   Anonymous 

The  reader  will  be  startled  by  the  amazing  truths  set  forth  and 
the  completeness  of  their  revelations.  Life  behind  the  scenes  is 
strippd  bare  of  all  its  glamor.  Young  women  whom  the  stage 
attracts  should  read  this  story.  There  is  a  ringing  damnation  in  it. 

MRS.  DRUMMOND'S  VOCATION,  by  Mark  Ryce 

Lily  Drummond  is  an  unmoral  (not  immoral)  heroine.  She  was 
not  a  bad  girl  at  heart;  but  when  chance  opened  up  for  her  the  view 
of  a  life  she  had  never  known  or  dreamed  of,  her  absence  of  moral 
responsibility  did  the  rest. 

DOWNWARD:  "A  Slice  of  Life,"  by  Maud  Churton  Braby 

AUTHOR  OF  "MODERN  MARRIAGE  AND  How  TO  BEAR  IT" 
"  'Downward'  belongs  to  that  great  modern  school  of  fiction  built 
upon    woman's   downfall.      *  *      I   cordially   commend   this   bit   of 

fiction  to  the  thousands  of  young  women  who  are  yearning  to  see  what 
they  call  'life.'  "—James  L.  Ford  in  the  N.   Y.  Herald. 

TWO  APACHES  OF  PARIS,  by  Alice  and  Claude  Askew 

AUTHORS  OF  "THE  SHULAMITE,"  "THE  ROD  OF  JUSTICE,"  ETC. 

All  primal  struggles  originate  with  the  daughters  of  Eve. 

This  story  of  Paris  and  London  tells  of  the  wild,  fierce  life  of  the 
flesh,  of  a  woman  with  the  beauty  of  consummate  vice  to  whom  a  man 
gave  himself,  body  and  soul. 

THE  VISITS  OF  ELIZABETH,  by  Elinor  Glyn 

One  of  Mrs.  Glyn's  biggest  successes.  Elizabeth  is  a  charming 
young  woman  who  is  always  saying  and  doing  droll  and  daring  things, 
both  shocking  and  amusing. 

BEYOND  THE  ROCKS,  by  Elinor  Glyn 

"One  of  Mrs.  Glyn's  highly  sensational  and  somewhat  erotic 
novels." — Boston  Transcript. 

The  scenes  are  laid  in  Paris  and  London;  and  a  country-house 
party  also  figures,  affording  the  author  some  daring  situations,  which 
she  has  handled  deftly. 

Price  50  cents  per  copy;  Postage  10  cents  extra 

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FAMOUS   BOOKS   BY 
WELL  KNOWN  AUTHORS 

THE  REFLECTIONS  OF  AMBROSINE,  by  Elinor  Glyn 

The  story  of  the  awakening  of  a  young  girl,  whose  maidenly 
emotions  are  set  forth  as  Elinor  Glyn  alone  knows  how. 

"Gratitude  and  power  and  self-control !  *  *  *  in  nature  I  find 
there  is  a  stronger  force  than  all  these  things,  and  that  is  the  touch 
of  the  one  we  love." — Ambrosine. 

THE  VICISSITUDES   OF  EVANGELINE,  by  Elinor 
Glyn 

"One  of  Mrs.  Glyn's  most  pungent  tales  of  feminine  idisoyncrasy 
and  caprice." — Boston  Transcript. 

Evangeline  is  a  delightful  heroine  with  glorious  red  hair  and  amaz- 
ing eyes  that  looked  a  thousand  unsaid  challenges. 

ONE  DAY:  A  Sequel  to  Three  Weeks 

"There  is  a  note  of  sincerity  in  this  book  that  is  lacking  in  the 
first." — Boston  Globe. 

"One  Day"  is  the  sequel  you  have  been  waiting  for  since  reading 
"Three  Weeks,"  and  is  a  story  which  points  a  moral,  a  clear,  well- 
written  exposition  of  the  doctrine,  "As  ye  sow,  so  shall  ye  reap." 

HIGH  NOON:  A  New  Sequel  to  Three  Weeks 

A  Modern  Romeo  and  Juliet 

A  powerful,  stirring  love-story  of  twenty  years  after.  Abounding 
in  beautiful  descriptions  and  delicate  pathos,  this  charming  love  idyl 
will  instantly  appeal  to  the  million  and  a  quarter  people  who  have  read 
and  enjoyed  "Three  Weeks." 

THE  DIARY  OF  MY  HONEYMOON 

A  woman  who  sets  out  to  unburden  her  soul  upon  intimate  things 
is  bound  to  touch  upon  happenings  which  are  seldom  the  subject  of 
writing  at  all;  but  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  views  of  the  anonymous 
author,  the  "Diary"  is  a  work  of  throbbing  and  intense  humanity,  the 
moral  of  which  is  sound  throughout  and  plain  to  see. 

SIMPLY  WOMEN,  by  Marcel  Prevost 

"Like  a  motor-car  or  an  old-fashioned  razor,  this  book  should  be 
in  the  hands  ef  mature  persons  only." — St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch. 

"Marcel  Prevost,  of  whom  a  critic  remarked  that  his  forte  was  the 
analysis  of  the  souls  and  bodies  of  a  type  half  yirgin  and  half  courtesan, 
is  now  available  in  a  volume  of  selections  admirably  translated  by  R.  I. 
Brandon-Vauvillez." — San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  NICE  YOUNG  MAN,  by 

AlX  Joseph  and  Potiphar's  Wife  Up-to-Date 

A  handsome  young  man,  employed  as  a  lady's  private  secretary, 
is  bound  to  meet  with  interesting  adventures. 

"Under  a  thin  veil  the  story  unquestionably  sets  forth  actual 
episodes  and  conditions  in  metropolitan  circles." — Washington  Star. 

Price  50  cents  per  copy;  Postage  10  cents  extra 

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The  Indiscretion 
of  Lady  Usher 

By  the  Author  of 
"THE   DIARY    OF    MY    HONEYMOON " 


This  story  is  a  Sequel  to  >cThe 
Diary  of  My  Honeymoon,"  one  of 
the  most  readable  books  we  have  ever 
published.  'The  Indiscretion  of 
Lady  Usher"  is  written  in  the  same 
intimate  style  that  has  made  famous  all 
the  writings  of  the  unknown  author 
and  we  predict  a  startling  success  for  it. 
The  book  will  make  you  burn  the 
midnight  oil. 

Price  $1.25  net;     Postage  10  Cents 


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15  West  38th  Street  New  York 


FAMOUS   BOOKS   BY 
WELL  KNOWN  AUTHORS 

THE  GIRL  THAT  GOES  WRONG,  by  Reginald  Wright 
Kauffman,  author  of  "The  House  of  Bondage" 

The  inexpressible  conditions  of  human  bondage  of  many  young 
girls  and  women  in  our  cities  demand  a  fearless  and  uncompromising 
warfare.  The  terrible  peril  that  lingers  just  around  the  corner  from 
every  American  home  must  be  stamped,  out  with  relentless  purpose. 

HER  REASON,  Anonymous 

This  startling  anonymous  work  of  a  well-known  English  novelist  is 
a  frank  exposure  of  Modern  Marriage.  "Her  Reason"  shows  the 
deplorable  resu'.ts  of  the  process  at  work  to-day  among  the  rich,  whose 
daughters  are  annually  offered  for  sale  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 

THE  COUNTERPART,  by  Horner  Cotes 

One  of  the  best  novels  of  the  Civil  War  ever  written.  John 
Luther  Long,  the  well-known  writer,  says  of  this  book — "It  is  a  per- 
fectly bully  story  and  full  of  a  fine  sentiment,  I  have  read  it  all — 
and  with  great  interest." 

THE  PRINCESS  OF  FORGE,  by  George  C.  Shedd 

The  tale  of  a  man,  and  a  maid,  and  a  gold-mine — a  stirring, 
romantic  American  novel  of  the  W^st.  The  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  says — 
•"Unceasing  action  is  the  word  fo"  this  novel.  From  the  first  to  tbe 
last  page  there  is  adventure." 

OUR  LADY  OF  DARKNESS,  by  Albert  Dorrington  and 

A.  G.  Stephens 

A  story  of  the  Far  East.  The  Grand  Rapids  Herald  says  of  the 
book — "  'Our  Lady  of  Darkness'  is  entitled,  to  be  classed  with  'The 
Count  of  Monte  Cristo.'  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  stories  of  mystery 
and  deep-laid  plot  and  its  masterly  handling  must  place  it  in  the  front 
rank  of  modern  fiction." 

THE  DUPLICATE  DEATH,  by  A.  C.  Fox-Davies 

A  first-rate  detective  story — one  that  will  keep  you  thrilled  to 
the  very  end.  The  Kcv>  York  Tribune's  verdict  on  the  book  is  this — 
"We  need  or.ly  commend  it  as  a  puzzling  and  readable  addition  to 
the  fiction  of  crime. 

Price  50  cents  per  copy;  Postage  10  cents  extra 

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